BF 

S^5 





- ; »1 





ciass Br 63^ 

Booki^f . 

CopyrightN?. 

CQEflRIGHT DEPOSER 



Synthetic Outline of 

PSYCHOLOGY 

PERSONAL and ESSENTIAL 

To be read in connection wi& the Public 
and Private PsycKology Tuition of 

ANNA- MAUD- HALLAM 



H. C SHEPPARD 



Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2011 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



http://www.archive.org/details/psychologypersonOOshep 



^vin^i II llll l l l lllll LUkTmTnnnTTTTTI I n il 111 lllll I I I II 1 






PSYCHOLOGY: 
PERSONAL and ESSENTIAL 



BY 
H. C. 5HEPPARD 




iiiii ii ii iii iii miiimuiiii 




Published by 

J. F. ROWNT PRESS 



Los Angeles 






Copyright, 1920 

by 
H. C. SHEPPARD 

Los Angeles 
Cal. 



©CI.A597136 



INTRODUCTORY 

ARE YOU THINKING? Undoubtedly you are, Some think 
only "after a fashion;" still, even that is thinking. 

ARE YOU ALIVE? ARE YOU LIVING? Surely NOT 
"only after a fashion!" 

LIFE AND THOUGHT, broadly are a Search— For What? 
Health? Wealth? Power? Wisdom? Beauty? Charm? 

All these, PLUS unbounded genius, are either awake in you, 
asleep in you, or dreaming in you. To search, find and awaken, 
KNOW YOUR MIND,— KNOW YOUR INSTRUMENTS. 

This tuition is not made to dazzle you like a movie drama — 
to stimulate while it lasts, but quickly to fade from mind. 

It will not beglitter and bedevil you with what this or the 
other Tom, Dick, or Harry among the blatant may have SAID 
about Success. 

It will not conceal lack of tuition with displays of fictitious 
air castles intended to derail attention from the main issue — the 
achievement of a Successful and Happy Life HERE AND NOW. 

It will show why the successful "are there;" better still, it 
shows you how you yourself can and must become a success, and 
improve your community by vitalizing your own type. A great 
success of your very type is needed or you would not be here. 

It does make you familiar with plans and tools, so that your 
purposes can be achieved, then sets you to work building the real 
castle of your own choosing. 

It encourages discarding of opinions and convictions when- 
ever facts and laws can be put in their place. Briefly, it shows 
you how you can achieve and Enjoy Active, Buoyant Life by 
working with facts and laws of mind as your secret animating 
sources of energy — instead of opinions, convictions, and fables. 
It shows how you can make Success, Personal Attractiveness and 
Health AUTOMATIC and HABITUAL, and the gleaning of Wis- 
dom INTELLIGENT, ACCURATE and INTUITIONAL. 

This conforms with what Plotinus said almost two thousand 
years ago, that Life and Knowledge have three degrees— Opinion, 
Science, Illumination. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 



This Is the Mate- 
rial Out of Which 
Your Machinery Is 
Constructed. 



Page 
Lesson 1 5 

LET THERE BE HEALTH 

Lesson 2 - - - - 27 
MENTAL INFLUENCE 

Lesson 3 - - - - 41 
VITAL NERVE ENERGY 
THE CELL CONSCIOUS- 
NESS 

Lesson 4 - - - - 58 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND 

Analysis or Psychic Surgery; 
and Suggestion. 

Lesson 5 - - - - 77 
REACHING THE INNER 
MIND 

The place for Understanding. 

Lesson 6 - - - - 93 
SUBJECTIVE INSIGHT 
AND OBJECTIVE ACCOM- 
PLISHMENT; OR, DREAM 
AND REALITY 

The place for Self-Conversion 

or Self-Healing. 

Lesson 7 - - 110 

HOW YOU CAN BEGIN TO "WORK MIRACLES" NOW 



Here Is Your 
Constructed 
Machinery and 
How It Operates. 



Lesson 8 - - 
A DAY DREAM 



128 



Lesson I. 
"LET THERE BE HEALTH' 1 

WE SHOULD like to see a knowledge of psychology so 
prevalent that the word would need no explanation. 
Psyche, of course, means soul, and logos means rec- 
ord, discourse or wisdom. Psychology therefore means the 
discourse, record and wisdom of the soul. We do not possess 
souls. We are souls. Hence the study of psychology is soul- 
study or j<?//-study. We should learn to think ourselves to be 
souls building and then inhabiting bodies we have built. This 
releases us at the start from allowing the condition of the body 
to play ducks and drakes with our poise. 

No line of distinction need be drawn between the names 
mind and soul. Splitting hairs might impede the liberation 
intended for every one who reads these chapters, from self- 
suppression and mental confinement. There are practical 
values and practical principles in psychology; it is better to 
have the reader swing into an applicable conception of the sub- 
ject than into a hair-splitting one. 

Most people are so hypnotized with a belief, admitted or 
unadmitted, that the bodily condition is imposed by something 
extraneous to themselves, that much of the best tuition along 
these lines, even if they themselves seek it, falls flat with them. 
The bodily condition is no more and no less than an outward 
expression or reflection of the state of mind. You may not 
admit an impaired state of mind. ' That merely means the im- 
pairment is deeper than any state you can recognize. It means 
that some fundamental attitude of mind or character, unaware 
to yourself, is not in line with evolutionary law. It can be found 
by Analysis and can be corrected by Suggestion. Analysis and 
Suggestion are two great tools of Psychology, to be explained 
later in this book. A healthy mind or soul cannot tolerate an 
impaired body; automatically and in the long run, it always 
rebuilds according to its own innate state. 

5 



6 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 

Some folks have claimed to be perturbed that psychology 
may trespass on religious beliefs, which of course is beside the 
point. Psychology does no such thing, any more than does the 
art of photography or the science of mathematics. Yet the 
expression of such a fear or objection often can be taken as 
mental laziness disguised. It is a trite observation of psychol- 
ogists that persons mentally and physically lazy will not hesi- 
tate to draw down divinity itself by corkscrew processes of 
reasoning, to defend an otherwise reprehensible attitude. 
There are fundamental verities in religion which psychology 
and science reverence with a depth of understanding unknown 
to that brand of pietist. If you have no faith, psychology 
will aid you to reestablish it within yourself; you could not have 
been born if you did not have it. If you have faith, psy- 
chology will strengthen it. 

As the proportions of this outline of psychology permit, 
we shall take up the specific study of Mind in its objective and 
subconscious phases, and of the laws, powers and possibilities 
of mind. This lesson is devoted to the subject of bodily 
health. No study of the body or any other phase of man's 
being is independent of mental law. Some scholar, who evi- 
dently had deep insight, once called the body but a "function 
of mind." If that is remembered, the student, with further 
application, should find superb health not only accessible, but 
should also be able to make it habitual with himself. Superb 
and abounding health should always go with real efficiency. 
All of us like to imagine that it always should be so. Yet we 
see well organized minds, capable men and women, genial and 
competent persons getting along ever so often the best they 
may, without that basis. 

Why is this? 

Is there a way out? Racially? Individually? 

Wherever there is inattention, there also is deterioration. 
The kitchen itself teaches that when something is not "attended 
to" it spoils. For the past century we have been riveting our 
attention to machines, systems, and to material things in gen- 
eral. We have, for instance, established government depart- 
ments to facilitate the raising of wheat, or of hogs. And we 
do have splendid wheat and superb hogs. We have built 
superb systems and edifices, while Ave ourselves all that time 



PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 7 

have been deteriorating for lack of attention. So we have no 
government departments to facilitate human health and to 
promote happiness. We would take such a department as a 
fit subject for a comic opera plot, very much as the Spartans 
or the Greeks and other splendidly embodied races might have 
poked fun at a hog-raising department if they had ever heard 
of it. So today, the science of true human culture is not so 
cushioned with facilities. The findings of the late military 
examination boards show to what bad extremes such lop-sided 
interest may lead. It has required an unparalleled holocaust of 
blood to startle us from a two-thousand-year nap. Since 
Athens we have ignored man, his own consciousness, the bring- 
ing into play of his latent powers. We have twisted around, 
as a palliative for our own laziness, one of the most signifi- 
cant psychological phrases in our own scriptures, from "Thy 
Kingdom Come," — to "No, 'I'd rather sicken, stay sick, die, 
or get shot and go to Thy Kingdom." We have paid little 
or no attention to the existence of laws by which development 
and growth of the human species must proceed. At last hu- 
manity has elevated an eyebrow in mild astonishment. It 
required no less a cataclysm than a world war to do it. Lan- 
guidly man surveys himself, mud, blood and inefficiency, and 
debates whether greater things even than his "civilization" 
could be accomplished if he were to swing his attention around 
for a while to that most ancient command, "Man, Know 
Thyself." We can no more than encourage the present swing 
of the pendulum. Where a half century ago no scientist 
viewed any psychic or spiritual hypothesis without scorn and 
contempt, today there is not one scientist of first rank in the 
world who is not only conversant with the fundamental psy- 
chological laws, but who does not also hold such laws as 
underlying, and, in fact, controlling the universe of matter 
and of humanity. 

So universal a subject as psychology of course has various 
and absorbing branches. For our present effort, therefore, we 
shall have to sift and select. We will choose for study only 
those features which can be applied to the development of 
human personality, to an improvement in its efficiency. Em- 
phasis should be laid on the attainments of greater capacity 
for Life, Love, Activity, Intelligence and Power, here and 



8 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 

now, but not to the exclusion of the higher psychic and spiritual 
demands. 

Let us cultivate that broad tolerance from the start, so 
if some isolated statement may startle and amaze for the time, 
we will yet know that before the course is completed all preju- 
dices and doubts will have been resolved, — will have been 
sublimated — to use a word much in vogue today, — into perfect 
answers for whatever questions may in the meantime arise in 
our minds. 

In Pursuing Health, Please Run in One Direction 
At a Time; If Possible, the Right One 

"What would I be willing to give" — asks Dr. Watson 
S. Rankin, president of the American Public Health Associa- 
tion, "for something in a bottle that carried with it the absolute 
guarantee that my vitality, my strength, bodily and mental, my 
efficiency, would be increased from five to ten per cent a year?" 
Indeed, Dr. Rankin shows sanely and conclusively in the prog- 
ress of his talk that no such bottle is available; that the loss of 
vitality does not take place suddenly, and that its conservation 
and increase is mostly up to the amount of conscious effort 
which the individual is willing to pay for it. Yet the material 
views with which we have saturated ourselves thru several 
generations still makes of the many — a community of drug- 
store haunters. This helps in some ways undoubtedly, — but 
not in the ways usually imagined. It helps patent medicine 
millionaires to winter in Florida or in Pasadena, but it does 
not add to the sum total of health. Sooner or later the drug- 
store haunter must learn to face the fact; he must learn that 
the contents of the bottle he is seeking cannot be bought with 
money. It can be bought only by readjustment of his own 
thinking, and that to such a fundamental and pervasive extent 
that the bodily functions cannot help but follow suit. 

Let us take a group of seventy-one typical Americans. 
Dr. Rankin says that out of this group one will die within the 
year. Only thirteen will be rated as in practically perfect 
health, with 90 per cent, or more of efficiency; 25 will have 
"good health," with from 70 to 90 per cent, of vitality; just 
below them in healthfulness, more or less impaired, are 30 
individuals, still out of the original group of 71. The re- 
mainder will comprise persons in various stages of imperfect 



PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 9 

health, including two who are in bed all the time and the one 
who is dead. Translated into terms of the whole population,, 
there are about 1,500,000 deaths annually, but there are some 
three millions who are sick all the time, while there are 45,- 
000,000 in the "zone of impairment." These forty-five mil- 
lions would give freely of their substance if health could be. 
bought for cash. Most of them would not pay the equivalent 
in personal effort. Few of them see or care to pay attention 
to such proffers as are contained within the pages of this book. 
— simple, readily understood measures for health, easily 
within the reach of all. The partly efficient division already 
includes 1 million out of the 45, "victims of tuberculosis, not 
yet bedridden, but sowing the seeds of death in new soil." 

Coming to the revelations disclosed by the draft, 38 per 
cent, of those rejected were of the dubious "good health" 
classification, enjoying from a scant 70 per cent, to a possible 
90 per cent, of full vitality. Included among them were those 
afflicted with serious maladies in their early stages, and a still 
larger company suffering from mild forms of intemperance, 
such as over-eating and consequent undernourishment or "mal- 
nutrition," under-sleeping and lack of sufficient exercise. Let 
us remember that as we pass sage remarks about them we are 
merely shifting and evading. The sage remarks apply to the 
person who speaks them. We will "get somewhere" only 
when we realize that in studying any appreciable sector of 
humanity we are indeed and in truth studying ourselves. For 
it is exactly in this dubious "good health" column that we 
would find many a capable business man. Often he is the best 
example of ourselves that we have to show. The Sunday 
edition of the local newspaper will often print his picture, and 
an enthusiastically careful "blurb," presumed to be a story of 
his life. In all, it is supposed to act as an "ikon" of success 
for the growing boy to read, remember and copy after. Inves- 
tigation would often dispel all mystery as to why the otherwise 
careful and capable man is in the "dubious" list. If we could 
watch some such criterion of perfection, more than likely we 
would see him hurrying nervously thru breakfast, scurrying 
next to his garage or commutation train, hurrying thru his 
morning's routine, the walls of the office showing mottoes to 
"hurry," and to "do it now." We'd see him snatching a quick 



10 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 

lunch at noon so that nothing will interfere with his hurry to 
get back to the office. Later we would see him hurried and 
jostled in traffic and in crowds. He is going home. But 
again, the supper must be hurried, for there the evening is 
already "dated." If the date is for an amusement, considering 
the man's state of mind by this time, — it must prove at best 
but distraction. It may as well be a business engagement, — 
and often it is. Then the ride home at last. Probably there is 
even the common tho' tragic attempt to hurry sleep — which 
can't be done. All this that he might hurry to get up in the 
morning and hurry thru breakfast once more. What now of 
the boy reading the "blurb" entitled: "Series 41144; Our 
Prominent Citizens; Their Stories of Success." Probably the 
youngster is already hampered by a faulty dietary, which as 
yet he trusts. Probably a murderous home psychology is being 
inflicted on him by a doting mother, and no psychology at all 
by a business-engrossed father. This he is beginning to mis- 
trust just a trifle. He says nothing. But if he be wise, the boy 
will be doing a lot of silent speculation. That speculation will 
be filled with doubt and foreboding what would become of him 
if he really did take the newspaper's advice and use the business 
man pictured, as a complete model for his own life. 
Thou Shalt Not Kill 

To take life by carelessness or omission is 2d degree mur- 
der legally, 1st degree murder morally. Indifference to one's 
own health is not at all removed from indifference to the health 
of others. It is "the public be damned attitude;" it is sustained 
violation of the commandment, "Thou shalt not kill." Public 
health is a private concern; private health is a public concern. 
No one is too dull-witted to understand this simple statement. 
Selfishness will of course stand in the way of applying it. But 
its application is the only remedy, and it lies in our own hands. 
The price of health is not alone individual care, but participa- 
tion as well in health matters of public moment. Nature is 
teaching us a mild lesson in this direction, which we persist- 
ently take in a manner that is drastic beyond all bounds. We 
"miss"-take it. The sloven, for instance, learns nothing from 
his mistake; he tolerates filth, contracts a disease, is relieved 
by a charitable practitioner or clinic, and returns to his en- 
trenchment of filth to menace the community. The plutocrat 



PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 11 

who not only tolerates, but often helps to perpetuate the neigh- 
boring disease-fester of slums, thereafter also makes a mistake 
in falsely imagining that he can go to a practitioner or doctor 
and buy immunity for himself or his sons and daughters. He 
is likewise deceived by some temporary relief into resuming his 
entrenchment. In ignoring the sources of his own comfort 
and competence, he is no less a threat to his own and the com- 
munity health than is the most abjectly ignorant sloven. 

During an epidemic we quit pretending that we cannot 
understand these simple rules against selfishness. We will do 
the obviously right and simple thing if we are sufficiently 
mauled and shocked, — not otherwise. Can the well-intentioned 
individual do anything to improve this situation, besides nursing 
his good intentions? Yes. Try to remember this preliminary 
table of 

The Ten Encouragements — 

I. If unwell, desire health so systematically and so much 
that you will have no mental energy left with which to 
worry about any disorder you may have. Translate 
the desire into effort and action whenever possible. 
Ways for improvement and health will present them- 
selves. 
II. Whether well or unwell, work to make sickness and 
epidemics unpopular; work to make health contagious, 
popular, fashionable, desirable, and available to all who 
sufficiently desire it. 

III. Enact, enforce and observe laws concerning commu- 
nicable disease and child hygiene. 

IV. Enact, enforce and observe laws to stamp out the last 
criminal blots of child slavery wherever they still befoul 
the map. 

V. Encourage only those practitioners and physicians 
who emphasize diet, exercise and natural recuperation 
much, and who use drugs and surgery only when patients 
(not the bank accounts of the practitioners) are in 
extremis. 
VI. Realize and help others to realize that psychological or 
mental law ultimately shapes the physical form and 
condition; that health or disease are symptoms of 
chronic tho' often somewhat obscure mental attitudes. 



12 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 

VII: Encourage in yourself and others realization of the fact 
that self-study, self-training and self-culture are the only 
forms of currency with which health and true growth 
can be bought. Money payment is symbolic; don't stop 
at the symbol. 
VIII. Don't "Oh!" "Ah!" and gush over this book or any- 
thing else; discourage undefined thought. Exercise feel- 
ing only in connection with things that are worth it. 
Find such things. You can if you yourself are worthy. 
IX. Dig in and stir up the fields of indifference in the race- 
consciousness; help to bring about a universal realiza- 
tion of the fact that health and disease, fortune and mis- 
fortune are self-made, and that the making starts with 
thought. 
X. Specialize in persuading that individual effort be used 
for currency as readily and cheerfully as payments are 
made for other less valuable objects where the price is 
translated into dollars and paid in a lump sum. 

These are some ways of translating your desires into 
effort. In practicing them, soon enough you can become a 
veritable dynamo for the increase of vital efficiency of those 
around you, by no means excluding yourself. 
The Best Study of Mankind Is Yourself 

There is but one thing to study, to know about, to 
"tune-up-to," in order to improve one's health, efficiency and 
personality, and thereby help in the development of a perfect 
race: It is your own mind. As you are mind or soul, the 
physical machine notwithstanding, — it is yourself. In a larger 
sense, — when studying all of psychology, you are always learn- 
ing about yourself. 

We find three factors which undoubtedly influence our 
mental and soul attitudes during life. These are : 

1. Heredity, 

2. Prenatal Influence, 

3. Subsequent experience and training. 
Someone may ask, How am I to change the influence of 

these ? They can be changed and improved by applied psychol- 
ogy. But a greater object even than that is so to enlighten the 
race-mind that every newcomer into our world will be certain 



&J° PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 13 



of the best in regard to these three factors. Heredity itself is 
peculiarly in the province of psychology. We see that the 
three factors mentioned serve to develop a fundamental atti- 
tude of character, and are the hidden springs which make each 
individual react to experience and to life itself differently from 
all other individuals. What science could be greater than one 
which can, even in the slightest measure, gain control of these 
hidden springs? 

All human beings are in school. On the other hand, no 
human being is "all here." There is a vast phase of each indi- 
vidual's mind, it seems, which never comes into the field of his 
awareness. That phase is the subconscious or bigger half of 
his mind. It is the phase that builded the body in the first 
place. If it seems to have done an imperfect job, there was 
something to hamper it among the three features of heredity, 
prenatal life, — or some violent obstruction developed as a re- 
sult of personal experience. The latter feature, any individual 
may rectify by learning and applying the simple and correct 
psychological principles. He can modify and improve infin- 
itely the influence of the former two — heredity and prenatal 
influence. To do these things, in fact, is a great part of the 
program of "studies" in which he must perfect himself before 
he can graduate from the "school." Not to be interested in 
the science of life is a sign of retarded evolution, — more 
specifically, a sign of self-impairment. 

To "do the lesson" most easily, it is necessary for the 
individual to realize that somewhere in his unplumbed psychic 
self, the subconscious mind has imprinted within it the picture 
of a perfect human being, — perfect with you according to your 
type. The brain is still in the process of evolving, — not yet 
perfect. Hence with it there is no possibility of forming a 
real picture of perfection. Therefore, psychologists have 
sometimes called this real subconscious design of a perfect man 
or woman the "divine" image. That might serve for a name, 
except that with most people the mention of such a word as 
"divine" acts as a signal to quit thinking. It is wise to drop 
those words which no longer challenge our aggressive interest, 
and to substitute such as do. After all, it is the idea, the prin- 
ciple and the reality that we want; words or names are of no 
importance. 



14 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 

That perfect plan or picture of what you should strive to 
he is the thing which every cell and automatic function in your 
body and being is working ably to bring into substantial reality 
for you. You will find that by acquirement and application 
of psychological knowledge, you will be in better position to let 
them work out this design unimpeded and unimpaired. 

Thru psychology you will find how to remove and to coun- 
teract any adverse impediments placed upon your subconscious 
"picture of perfection," by heredity, prenatal influence and 
personal experience. 

All the bodily and psychic automatisms are tremendously 
susceptible to heredity and the other two factors. But psy- 
chology tells us that all these things, when acting, act as 
bundles of mental energy, and therefore by mental law. Your 
mental attitude of this year or this minute is just as much a 
bundle of mental energy. It may be that both with old and 
with new bundles the kind of application of mental law has 
been adverse to your human welfare. Then the right and 
helpful application will open to you thru a knowledge of the 
facts and laws which you are now reading. 

This ensemble of facts, conclusions and laws, which con- 
stitutes our present knowledge of psychology, is the entering 
wedge to permanent improvement, self-development and ulti- 
mate perfection, not only in health, poise and efficiency, but 
finally into the acquirement of powers now hardly guessed or 
dreamed of by man. In that part of our tuition where "psychic 
faculties" fall into the sequence, it will be demonstrated how 
psychological law may be invoked to improve and strengthen 
the will, the reason, the memory, the emotions, and also that 
greatest single feature in the category of powers, human or 
"divine," — the Imagination. . 

Some day, as this knowledge spreads, it will be seen that 
heredity, prenatal influence and even personal thought resulting 
from drastic experience, need not be the formidable bugaboos 
they now seem to be. True enough, so long as we are ignorant 
and unable to use our own powers, these features are the causes 
of practically the sum total of our miseries. But the evolution 
of the you, the individual, no less surely than the evolution of 
the race, can surely be hastened by self-study, and by the con- 
structive application of laws which we may discover by that 



PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 15 

process. It is the only sure means; if its acceptance and appli- 
cation spreads, then only do we approach a real and never- 
ending millenium of a civilization that will be supreme, and not 
a cringing apology for itself such as the present. An Olympic 
image of perfect man will dominate life; gods of beauty and 
power will reign supreme in the hearts of men. 

In the main people are yet blindly and tragically ignorant 
of the one thing they should know, — the tremendous influence 
which Mind, their own mind, has over their bodies. They 
have totally forgotten that they are the visible expressions of 
their own mental attitudes, — that their thoughts and dreams, 
night and day, make them what they are. They forget that 
children are as they are, and often cannot find the ability to 
grow outside the bents given them by suggestions and impres- 
sions while yet unborn, or during infancy. We all need to be 
reminded that life and destiny are what we make them by our 
casual thoughts, by our intense thoughts, and by our lack of 
thoughts. 
Racial Development 

Activity and work, selfishness disregarded, are the only 
forms of worship you approve in yourself during your best 
moments. Those are the moments, if ever, that you are ex- 
periencing a reflection of higher (or if you prefer — "divine") 
guidance and approval. 

This all should apply to personal and racial improvement. 
We must work actively for it; that means we should dare to 
experiment in order to find out laws, and then again dare to 
apply our findings. 

Look at Nature, which someone has called The Garment 
of God. All about us we see where outside his own clan man 
has improved things by adding to — where Nature left off. 
He has incurred no "divine" disapproval by that course, but, 
on the contrary, has been richly blessed for it. A god evi- 
dently never objects to having his garments altered by man so 
the latter may use them. 

Man placed his attention on fruits and vegetables. In 
early Aryan and Persian times he took a plant a little worse 
than our present thorn-rose, tampered with it, and today that 
thorny shrub is our Hood River Apple. The history of our 
great sunny and seedless orange is similar, even more recent. 



16 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 

A wild little hedge vine has thus been made into our American 
Beauty rose. 

. Nature only contained the wild dog or wolf, the wildcat 
and the wild horse. Man, again, by sundry attempts at domes- 
ticating members of these animal tribes, plus judicious inter- 
ference even in their own generative selections, has produced 
those thorobreds which now we enjoy for utility or pleasure. 

With plants, birds and animals, science has demonstrated 
that selection, care, intelligence, and finally an applied intuition 
resulting from these (which we may call the "psychology" of 
the thing) — the superior specimen thus evolved becomes so 
common that we regard it as always having been with us. 

Nature unaided produces only species. Man must study 
and labor to produce specific types of use to himself; he must 
himself produce the superior specimen. 

We need not go to Malthus. We need not scan the 
academic fields. We can go to any neighboring farm and see 
that the laws of natural selection, heredity, prenatal influence 
and environment, can be understood, manipulated and im- 
proved. We can see there that experimentation need not be an 
abomination. Laws can be discovered. As they are more and 
more completely understood and applied, the program more 
than vindicates itself because the succeeding generations of off- 
springs are superior. Today we are using what we recognize 
of these laws — with our livestock. Therefore, our livestock 
today is the best in the history of the world. 

Not neglecting the psychic and spiritual factors involved, 
man, some day, will quit his foolish disdain of these same laws 
in his own case. Up to the present time man has allowed un- 
controlled Nature, — that is to say, Nature, hampered with the 
unattended and complacent incrustations of human ignorance, 
to run her own course in the evolution of mankind. Psychology 
means to, and in time, surely will throw light on this problem. 

Personal Development; How We 
Cause Our Own Illnesses 

Disease is better understood when spelled "dis"-ease, 
when it means lack of ease, physical, psychic or mental. It 
has only one source, which is the sufferer's state of mind. How 
can this be in the case of a broken limb ? The carelessness, or 
the moment of inattention which preceded it, shows that the 



PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 17 

mind had to "break" before the leg could. It requires mental 
effort of some sort to grasp and apply even physical laws. A 
balanced diet never yet helped a person with unbalanced emo- 
tions and a floundering mind. Says the proverb: Whiskey 
never yet made a drunkard; vice (a mental defect always) has 
made many. Intolerance and lack of balance are two major 
vices. Most prohibitionists have both. Drunkards usually 
have only the latter. It stands to reason that if we were fully 
conversant with both mental and physical aspects in the laws 
of health and applied them, the person and the race 
would become at once physically perfect. There is a physical 
side to consider in all this. It is a mistake, the effects of which 
are foolishly suppressed by some, entirely to ignore application 
of physical measures. Psychology makes the use of physical 
'measures more intelligent, powerful and helpful. One of the 
first steps in real mind and soul growth is the thorough learn- 
ing NOT TO IGNORE FACT, and NOT TO MISCONSTRUE FACT 
EVEN IF YOUR FAMILY, YOUR CULT OR DENOMINATION AND 
THE WHOLE WORLD ARE ALL DOING SO. 

A few necessary things in regard to health must be taken 
up from an angle that does not appear psychological. Yet 
nothing is, or transpires, but has its effect on mind. Psychology 
is "built up" knowledge concerning such effects. At first blush 
some parts of this first chapter may sound "materialistic." 
Essentially, however, they will prove themselves as sound in- 
gredients of a broad and deep psychology. We will see, for 
instance, how necessary it is to accomplish the habit of health. 
Habit is purely a psychological or mental entity brought into 
being by your own thinking. The question is, how may we 
build into ourselves such habits as will always be stimulating us 
into good health? We have already despaired of buying for 
money the "miraculous bottle" of the doctor quoted. Let us 
despair also of those sweeping slogans replete with mystery 
and metaphysics, which some people use to veil their difficul- 
ties. The answer is much more simple than all that. 

In Nine Cases Out of Ten, Cleanliness 
Insures Health 

The healthy system is never an unclean system. The 
clean constitution is healthy. Disease, as shown, has only one 
source of origin — mind. But the grosser symptoms of it at- 



18 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 

tach themselves to both mind and body. The body reflects it 
as internal uncleanliness. If ignorance and neglect are main- 
tained after that, the disordered condition may become com- 
plicated and chronic. 

We shun or ignore persons who disobey the dictates of 
good breeding, who neglect themselves outwardly in point of 
cleanliness. Yet self-neglect as regards internal cleanliness, 
not so visible, does not receive a similar condemnation which 
it richly deserves. Many speak glibly of their bodies being 
temples for the indwelling of the holy ghost. Often those 
very individuals will be found too lazy to apply intelligent 
effort at least to have healthy digestive and intestinal action. 
If the reeking and poisonous bodily condition of many such 
individuals were as apparent as their well-groomed exteriors, 
they would land in jail forthwith; no evidence of any misde- 
meanor but that would justify their incarceration. 

Water 

Further on we shall delve somewhat into the intelligence 
and activity of the cells which compose the tissues and flesh of 
our bodies. Yet at this point it will be wise to remember to 
what an astonishing extent water enters as an ingredient of all 
these minor components of the body. The cells themselves, 
almost in a strictly literal sense, are marine animals. The 
body, without an inflow of fresh water, like the Great Salt 
Lake, or the Dead Sea, poisons of itself the life of its cell con- 
stituency. The lives in water want fresh water, not dead 
water. Yet Nature, thru the neglect of many persons to drink 
ample quantities of fresh water, — to make up the lack, is 
forced to reabsorb from the bowels liquids already fouled and 
intended to aid in the sewerage processes of elimination. This 
is often a prime cause of "auto intoxication," hardening of the 
arteries, — the otherwise quite mythical malady called "old 
age." Coffee or tea and their denatured substitutes cannot be 
depended upon to take the place of clean, fresh water, and the 
same is true of most liquid beverages. Many such, it is true, — 
especially fruit juices (if one is sure they are not "faked" in 
manufacture) may be wholesome tonics; but for cell-rejuvena- 
tion and renovation, why not do the obvious, — quit arguing or 
"disliking" water, and instead drink plenty of it? Children, in 
the main, obey their instincts in this regard generously, and are 



PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 19 

rewarded just as generously with that vigor which we take to 
be the child's due. 

With adults it becomes practically necessary to lay down 
some rule. In the majority of instances, it would be well if 
that rule were made for a half, or even whole, tumbler-full of 
water every hour of the active day. Thruout this study we 
shall be learning how enormous an influence the mental attitude 
exercised toward every physical act has on the subconscious 
self, with a consequent reaction on the body. It is not too 
early, however, to say this in regard to the drinking of water: 
Get a supply which your common sense (or the common sense 
of someone else, if you have none) tells you is clean, fresh, 
and dependable. Such fundamentals of physical life, as water, 
must be taken with utter confidence. If you have lost it, regain 
it in regard to all the essential fundamentals, not only of the 
physical life, but of the mental life as well. Then train your- 
self from the core of your soul to feel that water is life-giving, 
rejuvenating, — a pure tonic without adverse reaction. If you 
will do this seven or eight times a day for a week, you will 
have established the habit of deriving good mental influence 
from your hourly tipple of water for the rest of your life. In- 
dulge it from that time on as a permanent and pleasant habit. 
If you take it as a painful duty, you will be cheating yourself 
out of more than half the benefit it could otherwise do for 
your bodily health. 

Constipation 

Do not overdo the matter. It is not necessary to flush 
and drown the system. Use sense. Develop it as the most 
valuable counter-habit to the constipation habit, — the prolific 
root of many "filth diseases." It is a more gentle and effective 
way to "bathe internally" than the enema (rectal injection of 
warm water containing a trifle of castile soap) — altho' the 
enema need not be prohibited if the filth accumulation is unduly 
aggravated. The water drinking as described above will the 
sooner warrant that injections may be entirely dispensed with. 

In pronounced cases of faulty elimination, there is a fur- 
ther item to practice when the regime of drinking more water 
is first adopted. Every person can make certain movements 
with the abdominal muscles (which, by the way, are remark- 
ably strong even in the weakest bodies) — that will amount to 



20 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 

"churning the stomach." This can be done right after a 
tumbler of water has been drunk, and even during the process 
of the enema. After this, lie flat on the back on the floor (the 
resilience of a couch or bed spoils the effect) and forcibly, with 
the aid of the hands, if necessary, bring the knees up to touch 
the abdomen. Repeat twenty times with due rest intervals. 
This will often bring immediate results. 

Most cases, however, are too mild to require this last 
exercise. With such, a slow but thorough squeezing and mas- 
saging of the upper abdomen and its sides will often produce 
the same result, provided the ?ystem is not dry-rotting for lack 
of water. The person fulfilling these requirements must with 
it all demand of himself, insist, and above all EXPECT that 
the eliminatory functions act efficiently and that they com- 
mence at once. So much for water. 

The Clean System Is the Healthy System 

Bathing, external or internal, alone, cannot keep the sys- 
tem clean. If the mind is fouled, the cells and tissues and 
organs of the body will surely reflect its condition. Now, it 
may be true that sensuality and prurient desires may often clog 
an otherwise good mind. But these "side-tracks" are but 
child's play when compared to adverse emotions, such as Fear, 
Anxiety, Envy, Greed and Jealousy. Indeed, the all too com- 
mon tendency to view a perfectly necessary function and its 
biological expression in an over-puritanical or prudish manner 
is often in the first place the cause of mental filth and the cor- 
responding destructive emotionalism. These are the forms of 
mental action which defile the physical system as surely and 
much more poisonously than physical constipation. The latter, 
itself, from a psychological point of view, often is nothing 
more than one of the minor and comparatively harmless effects 
produced by years of indulgence in such emotions and attitudes. 
Sound the tocsin of cleanliness, so that it will reverberate 
and register not only in the physical habits, but thruout the 
psychic habits as well. The religious aphorism has it that 
"Cleanliness is akin to godliness." Psychology says it is sure 
that cleanliness is a synonym of Health. 



PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 21 

Man Received the Breath of Life 
and Thus Became a Living Soul 

The sentence is paraphrased from the bible; but what did 
the Hebrew writer mean? What meant the wise Egyptians in 
keeping among their most treasured scriptures a "Book of the 
Breaths of Life?" What meant the Aryans by "Pranayama — 
the spiritual science of breath?" 

The author recalls the advice of an old physician. He 
knew drugs, but was not bound by them. He knew well the 
ways in which Nature acts under given circumstances. He was 
conferring with a young graduate physician in regard to pul- 
monary tuberculosis. "If your patient breathes less air than 
a pint and a half at a breath, get rid of him as a patient, — 
send him to Arizona, — anywhere, — he will die on your hands 
otherwise." 

To breathe amply for all the needs of the body is a lost 
art with the majority of adults. We all know, of course, that 
oxygen in the air refreshes the blood stream in the body," and 
is necessary for the combustion and elimination of effete or 
"used out" components of the cell tissues. Few realize the 
importance of this process, and the wisest have probably not 
as yet guessed all that is tied up in the mysterious activity of 
mere breathing. It is significant that a body may live without 
food a month and frequently even longer; it may be deprived 
of sleep indefinitely and still maintain fairly well; it may go 
without moisture several days without suffering, but it will die 
within a few moments if deprived of air. The breath, like the 
taking of water, serves surely both to rejuvenate the vitality 
of the body, and to purify. Only its action is more vital and 
more keen than that of any other one thing we may use to 
maintain the physical mechanism. 

The Aryan sages claimed to become aware of an element 
or principle "within" the air which they called "Prana." We 
hesitate to interpret this term, — it might probably be called 
"the source of life." Its more specific meaning seems to be 
somewhat like "pure, nascent energy, capable of becoming or 
doing anything if propelled by Will — human or divine." 

Some of the better exercises for forming the habit of 
breathing more amply are as follows : 



22 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 

I. Lie flat on the back, on the floor or on a lawn. 
Spread the arms as far as they will reach to either side. 
Breathe, and encourage the muscles and vertebrae immediately 
behind the lungs to arch, as they will have a tendency to do 
during the exercise. Relax, and repeat slowly and with rest 
periods, ten to twenty times. 

II. When walking, select some square or block occa- 
sionally where there is not much traffic. Inhale, while walk- 
ing, as usual, — but instead of exhaling take an additional 
breath over and above the one already held. Walk twelve or 
fifteen steps with this double expansion and exhale. To avoid 
constriction or a tendency to cough, make the exhalation in 
two efforts; that is, when the breath is half exhaled, take a 
"catch" breath, and then release the rest of the air held in the 
lungs. 

III. Do not forget that the lungs have great areas of 
cells which are for the most part practically dormant. Such 
dormant "pockets" often contain fouled "residual" air, — air 
that may have been inhaled days ago. Eliminate this two or 
three times every day. It can be done by reversing exercise 
No. 2. That is, exhale as usual, but instead of inhaling at 
once according to natural tendency, just exhale vigorously once 
more with a prolonged wheeze if necessary, and then when 
you know that every atom of air has been expelled, inhale 
once to your normal capacity, slowly. 

Let Us Watch One Breath 

There is a deep psychological connection between breath- 
ing and the character and purposefulness of mental action, 
and the resultant emotions and thoughts. We shall some day 
find the scriptural quotations and the Oriental sage's views in 
regard to breath of vast and vital significance. We may well 
imagine that the blood-cells physically renewed and given a 
new lease of life with every breath do not travel away from 
the lungs empty-handed psychically. We may well imagine 
them imbued with the thought held at the time of the (to it) 
rejuvenating process. The cell comes to the lungs half dead, 
laden with a burden of poison and debris; fatigued to the limit 
of its endurance. Of a sudden its burden melts; it is vital, 
strong, elastic and buoyant once more. To you or to me it was 
nothing, — merely taking a new breath, — nothing. But to the 



PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 23 

cell, it was the one thing needed; without it there would be 
no more life as a cell entity. Have you ever remembered, 
when awakening from a profound sleep, from a faint, from 
an anaesthetic, how the thing that first attracted your atten- 
tion, in some unaccountable way, was magnified in your imagi- 
nation, in fact, in some way actually influenced the currents of 
your life? The thing that first attracts the cell's attention in 
each of these re-awakenings from near death is your thought 
of the moment, as well asyour basic attitude toward life. And 
it proceeds to build your embodiment accordingly. It rushes 
away from the lungs and heart, imbued with what was you at 
the time it re-awakened there. Then as it travels to fulfill its 
mission throughout the veins and arteries of the body, other 
cells, more stationary, by the contagion of its influence, take up 
the thought, and build and function accordingly, weighed down 
only by the essence of the thoughts you have thought during 
your life. The new thought is continually acting on the layer of 
old ones. It is either "fluffing" them out, or it is compressing 
them with more weight, into prejudices and convictions. Our 
prejudices and convictions make up the several dispositions 
which each one of us carries. These dispositions mold and 
shape the character, which generally, but not always, is more 
of a unity. The character determines the kind of embodiment, 
for out of the "breath" (refer again to "prana") we are se- 
lecting ingredients of life and embodiment only according to 
our characters ; and the character in turn shows forth in the 
manner of the embodiment; character influences, as well as de- 
termines, the kind of environment we will gravitate toward 
willy nilly, and the manner of friends and associates, — even 
the kind of enemies we will attract. This is in part what is 
meant by the "chemistry" of the body and the "chemistry" of 
personality, when those terms are found in the literature of 
modern thought. This shows in some slight way how our 
destinies, our fortunes and our adversities are self-made. It 
shows how to bolster our faith with an insight into natural 
operations, and thereby make it more vital. 

Overeating Means Undernourishment 

Obesity itself means usually that by overeating the person 
has starved his assimilating mechanism out of all ability other 
than the weak effort needed to turn certain food ingredients 



24 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 

into fat, The measures suggested in reference to the proper 
use of air and of water, if carried out, will make the appetite 
more normal. Our tastes cannot be "natural" no matter how 
much we insist that they are if the system is clogged with filth, 
and if the organs of the body must crowd into distorted posi- 
tions by a flattened chest. We must learn to stand, sit and 
walk in healthy postures, and that is easiest done bj breathing 
amply. By amply, we mean the full capacity, and that itself 
increased judiciously by the exercis.es given. An "ample" 
breath will crowd outward the small, loose, or "floating" ribs, 
which may be felt two or three inches above the bones of the 
hip. If your appetite has not been normal, you will notice an 
imperative change creeping into its demands as you keep up 
with rational breathing, and maintain the body as clean as 
sufficient quantities of good, fresh water will make it. 

If there has been a tendency toward high blood pressure, 
for instance, or toward hardening of the arteries, — toward 
deposits of uric and other acids, cropping out in twinges of 
neuritis and of rheumatism, — then if you have given your body 
the drill already described, you will notice a tendency in your 
appetite not to call for the products of the farmer's barnyard 
and slaughter-house. Fish, eggs, milk, cheese, and meat are 
richly nitrogenous foods, excellent for the growing body of the 
child and adolescent, but furnishing an over-plus of unusable 
building material if taken into the body of the average adult. 
If the condition has been diabetic, the appetite you will note, of 
itself, will begin to call less and less for sugar and for starchy 
foods, which readily change into sugar when once introduced 
into the system. And so on. 

The same "inner" consciousness that digests, and knows 
how to digest perfectly, also knows how to select perfectly. If 
it is given a chance to function unhampered by a clogged 
physique, unhampered by an emotion-ridden mind, the diet 
itself will not matter much. You will automatically find your- 
self eating the things that you need, instead of the things that 
you want. If by chance occasionally you do eat things that you 
merely want, even then, if unhampered, that alimentary intel- 
ligence will take what it needs out of the dish you wanted and 
discard the rest in Nature's way after you have eaten it. It h 
not so much a question of "What shall I eat," as it is a ques- 



PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 25 

tion of "What are you thinking of, and Who are you that are 
going to eat." If you eat in a worried condition, you are 
actually building into yourself greater capacity for more worry. 
It is a thankless undertaking. If you are flatulently optimistic 
at such times, you are then and there increasing your inability 
to help in the "big scheme," — for if you should even a thou- 
sand years later see a man with his leg suddenly broken or cut 
off in some traffic accident, you will be able to tell him to be 
cheerful, and that is all. The mind at all times should be bent 
not only on willingness, but upon the acquisition of knowledge 
and ability to serve. Optimism and cheerfulness are the 
most valuable sidelines in the world, but that person is doing 
himself an injustice who prides himself on them as his chief 
stock in trade to the exclusion of Integrity, Knowledge, Will- 
ingness, and Ability. 

Movement 

A stationary body may do all the things so far discussed, 
and yet receive not one whit of benefit in the way of health. 
We exist in a plane where physical movement is practically 
synonymous with life itself. If the body is gently moved, 
exercised both in limbs and organs during a deep breath, for 
instance, then all the organs, instead of only the lungs, have a 
chance to participate in the benefit. Again, during any form of 
exercise, the benefits are doubled, if the mind is made to co- 
operate with the action. Thinking intently of a promissory 
note due tomorrow, while flailing the air wildly with the arms, 
is not exercise even if you call it that; it will not develop the 
biceps; it will only increase your capacity for worry. It is 
doubtful whether it will in the least help to pay the note. The 
blood circulates easily according to the currents of one's atten- 
tion. The visit of blood to any part of the body means either 
one or the other of these two things, and sometimes both: 
The (1) nutrition or (2) stimulation, in short, the building 
of tissue, form or function visited. If you want a well-rounded 
neck, exercise in a fashion to bring the blood there naturally, 
helping with gentle massage anon, and always Imagining the 
result you want. If it is more weight that is wanted, use the 
imagination — impress it with a picture of your body as you 
should like it to be. 



26 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 

Do not depart too widely from your type in the 
picture you thus hold, or you will be wasting energy and time. 
Nature seems to decree that we must Avork toward a perfection 
each person of his or her particular type, and if we do this 
with every tool we have, above all, with fundamental expecta- 
tion, we are richly rewarded. Do this with especial vigor dur- 
ing exercises, and expect results ; no matter how much or how 
little you desire, want or wish for results, EXPECT them. 
Sleep more than heretofore, if possible, should added weight 
be the necessity; sleep a little less, if reduction of weight is 
desired. Also if the latter be the case, resolutely eliminate from 
the diet such nitrogenous foods as were formerly enumerated. 

Whatever the .departure from normal physical perfection 
may be, exercise is the great equalizer, — the "normalizer." 
You may be nervous, catarrhal, rheumatic, too fat, too lean, 
or tubercular. The essentials so far recommended, if carried 
out with plenty of exercise to effectualize the application of 
the former factors, will do for you what a regiment of physi- 
cians and trained nurses can never do. 

And after all they are simple to remember and to apply; 
the first two are the greatest cleansers and vitalizers in the 
world — not merely AIR and WATER, — but the right and ample 
use of AIR and WATER. 

The Items necessary for building, rebuilding, eftectualiz- 
ing and maintaining are the proper use of food and physical 
exercise. These four features may be imagined as four pow- 
erful horses, galloping in the most sure-footed manner wher- 
ever your fundamental attitude toward life, the quality and 
character of your mental activity is directing them. Or again 
they may be pictured as four expert mechanics, building your 
earthly tabernacle according to the way you allow either your 
irresponsible emotions, or your rational, purposeful WILL, to 
boss them. 



Lesson II. 
MENTAL INFLUENCE 

"You never can tell what a thought will do, 
In bringing you hate or love ; 
For thoughts are things, and their airy wings 
Are swifter than carrier doves. 
They follow the law of the universe; 
Each thing creates its kind. 
They speed o'er the track to bring you back 
Whatever went out from your mind." — (E. W. Wilcox) 

IN THE foregoing lesson we observed the four main 
physical essentials of health, namely, the proper use of 
Water, Air, Food and Exercise. Now, if we were to pick 
ten passersby from the main street of your town or city, and 
could induce these ten persons faithfully to adopt a correct 
regimen in regard to all those essentials, we would probably 
note at the end of a year that, altho each of the ten benefited, 
yet the benefits would be of different kinds. How would we 
account for these differences? By the basic mental atti- 
tude of the person himself. 

All those four activating factors act according to the 
kind of mental influence radiated upon them by the person. It 
is well known to specialists that food stock should never be 
slaughtered when in a state of fatigue, anxiety or fear, — as 
the meat then will not prove edible. Chemical actions and 
reactions are at all times taking place within the body. There 
may be many causes, obscure as well as obvious, for those 
changes, but one of the most obvious causes lies in the state of 
the emotions. 

In some laboratories one may perchance find a delicate 
balancing table. A person may so adjust himself upon it that 
the scales at both ends show equal weight. An interesting 
proof of the physiological effect of thought and emotion may 
then be witnessed. If the person so laid out on the table can 
stimulate his imagination that he is running, — running as from 
some impending danger, — very soon the foot end of the table 
will show overweight and the head end underweight. The 

27 



28 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 

blood, and naturally the energies of the body, have followed 
the emotions and the thought to the feet. Let the same person 
now imagine that he is being crushed beneath a falling log, 
and that alternate lifting with each shoulder is all that will 
free and save his life. Let him continue this purely imaginary 
exercise vigorously only a few moments, and presently the 
markings of the scales will have reversed themselves — the foot 
end underweight and the head end overweight. 

Fear, anxiety, envy, jealousy, all these destructive emo- 
tions, are allowed to play through us only because of ignor- 
ance as to what their consequences are. Acute, excited fear or 
anxiety will open the adrenalin glands, releasing copious quan- 
tities of that fluid into the blood stream of the body. Nature, 
evidently on the theory that if you fear or are anxious, neces- 
sarily you must be wanting to fight physically, or to run fast 
and far, then supplies you with this powerful stimulant. Un- 
less dissipated in vigorous and prolonged physical exercise, it 
does not prove to be a stimulant at all, but seems to act more 
like an insidious and persistent poison. It is the conjecture of 
psychology that many ailments such as paralysis, diabetes, 
Bright's Disease, etc., are the results of ignorant indulgence in 
violent and destructive emotions, — that they are to be classed 
among the worry and anxiety diseases, as typhoid and similar 
ailments have long been classed among the filth diseases. 

Self-neglect causes the filth diseases. 

Self-abuse causes the anxiety diseases. The worst form 
of self-abuse is destructive emotionalism. It is just as easy to 
saturate oneself with enthusiasm, self-confidence, and optimism 
by the mere insistence to oneself that the opposite mental atti- 
tudes are irrational. There are many people who must be in a 
frantic state of activity and distraction; quiet or solitude with 
such immediately brings on a mood of depression. If the 
mind is trained to stand always in a constructive attitude, 
however, there is nothing more valuable than a frequent with- 
drawal from all activity, and the person will learn to value 
such periods every, bit as much as the active "good time." 
Spontaneously, pictures will spring up in the mind at such 
times — representations of ideals to be attained with means 
suggested how to attain them. Feel yourself being submerged 
in and surcharged with a fullness of energy that sends you 



PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 29 

back into the world of activity buoyant, genial, successful. Too 
many people are satisfied barely to drag along through life, — 
but gladly would grasp at vitality and health and success if it 
were handed them on a silver platter. Psychology merely ex- 
plains that each one of us may grab the means of health and 
success. If we have ailments then we have made them. If we 
have made them, then we ran unmake them. And as we proceed 
to unmake our ailments and inefficiencies, if only by the methods 
already suggested, we will find our personalities growing so 
magnetic that it will be a stimulation for others merely to meet 
us. This last should be qualified before going further, with 
this question: If you are not in possession of many friends > 
just how glad are you to meet and commune with those you do 
possess? There is a deep law of cause and effect running 
underneath and within all features of life. It is a curious 
fact that many people, apparently quite successful, are often 
found without true friends merely because the law, "If you 
want friends, be one," is not understood. 

Picture yourself to yourself — be proud of the fact that 
you can lend yourself your own encouragement, — and then 
substantiate your pride by actually doing the things that appeal 
to you as meant for your progress toward your ideal. There 
will be much improvement in the mental influence you give 
yourself and radiate to others if only this one instruction is 
whole-heartedly carried out for a month. You will find your- 
self rising in your own estimation, — really on the par instead 
of whiningly apologizing for this defeat and the other. You 
will observe facts, and take them for what they are. If you 
are in the wrong situation, you will not any more allow it to 
magnify itself in your mind as some monster that enslaves you 
from eternity and unto eternity. You will take it merely as 
the present temporary fact, of no more significance than a 
thousand other facts which surround you. You will see that 
just as great a fact as the unwelcome or unworthy situation is 
the overwhelming fact that you will get out, and 
that the getting out will be an improvement over the 
old environment. The secret of developing, improving and 
strengthening mental influence is just this ability to recognize 
fact, without minimizing the importance of it, nor yet piling 



30 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 

on it extravagant theories, or meanings, and then allowing 
such theories and meanings to enslave us. 

The successful man or woman is never known to build 
cramping nightmares even out of the most distressing facts. 
If heredity were the formidable thing claimed for it some 
decades ago, some of the greatest personages in history would 
never have been great. Many of them sprang from hereditary 
strains that were poor and obscure, without faculty or talent. 
They were strong enough to take the fact of a poor heredity 
at its face value, and overtop it with the greater fact of their 
determination to be what they wished to be. 

Don't be afraid of facts. Don't deny facts. For the 
most part, physical conditions, whether they pertain to health 
or to other circumstance, are the result or effects of mental 
causes. Realize that to the extent which you control your own 
mind and emotions, to the extent you transform irresponsible 
destructive emotions into constructive attitudes, — to that ex- 
tent will your dreams and your wishes come true according to 
the silent operations of your will. 

People who indulge in destructive emotions always 
have real reasons for doing so. The truly advancing student 
of psychology must learn to REFUSE anxiety, worry, jeal- 
ousy, pettiness and selfishness, — must learn to refuse them 
entrance at the threshold of his mind, no matter how valid 
may sound their reasons for wanting entrance. Insist that 
only such material may enter your mind as will help, and not 
oppose the wonderful way of body-building which Nature has 
ordained. Insist that you will see more and more clearly, 
and comply more and more easily with the constructive phase 
of that law. It will become apparent that each person builds 
his destiny not only year to year, but minute to minute. You, 
as you find yourself today, ARE your destiny THUS FAR. You 
are what you are and where you are today, as the result of 
mental attitudes you have indulged and thoughts you have 
given birth to in the past. No phrase sums it up better than 
this: The thoughts of today become the dreams of tonight, 
the actions of tomorrow, and the character of the future. 
Thoughts long held become convictions; they reach their nth 
power — like weak fluids that we watch fermenting for a while 
and then turning into alcohol. Such "essences" of thought, 



PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 31 

deep convictions, often cannot be changed quickly by taking up 
a new channel of "surface thinking." The realization 
that you are an all-powerful soul with absolute dominion over 
the weal or woe of your own body can be brought about 
through persistence. Deepen and yet more deepen the funda- 
mental changes in your convictions, and look less for quick re- 
sults in these things. The results will come quickly enough 
and in abundant measure as soon as your mental currents be- 
come obedient to your will. 

Note the things that you are today, the things that 
happened TO you today. They are, and they befell you 
in exact obedience to the same law. They happened as a 
result of your subconscious WILL. The subconscious will, if 
we have not forgotten, acts only with as much freedom, only 
with as much choice, as the weight of your biases, prejudices, 
destructive emotions, and the essences of your past thinking 
will allow. The sooner you can completely rid it of all en- 
cumbrances, the sooner will it operate just as magically, just 
as effectively, to make you and your environment over into 
what you dream of, imagine, yearn after and idealize. Your 
body is a solidified substance, builded subtly and wonderfully 
by the action of mind. The action of mind made a "matrix," 
as the printers call it, into which as it were this body has been 
poured, and by which it has been moulded. No illness, no 
defect in physique, can appear, except by some defect or 
impairment in our thinking. It is the influence of our own 
thinking which either topples us from the road of health, or 
with gyroscopic stability, keeps us in the sunny middle road of 
health and poise. 

It is not what happens to us that matters. To the bright- 
est luminaries in history more dreadful things happened than 
will ever, it is hoped, happen to you. It did not matter; they 
did not allow it to matter. The great thing that does matter 
is, how will you react to this or that occurrence in your life? 
In other words, How will you take jt? How you take a thing 
determines what yoiTare engraftingmto your own character — 
determines in fact then and there some corresponding modifi- 
cation in the strength and quality of your mental influence. 
And it is interesting to note that the great shocks in life seldom 
are reacted to badly. We seem to be elevated and dignified, 



32 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 

as by the touch of some superior being then, and the reaction 
to the sudden and real soul cataclysm is seldom destructive. 
Where attention is needed, however, is on the common detailed 
occurrences of everyday life. It is the reaction we give, it is 
how we take what this person did, and what the other person 
said, that needs readjustment in line with correct psychology. 

Any person, unless he be a yellow cur, will die that others 
might live; but we often find the same person an unbearable 
cad or shrew in everyday life. It is so easy to die, especially 
if our pictures will be put in the papers after the event. But 
it is such a bother to live, grow, and help others in living and 
growing. The psychological student reverses the channels of 
this sort of "heroism" and renews his efforts every minute of 
the waking day, if necessary, to keep the energy wasted in day- 
dreams of martyrdom down to the business of living 
efficiently. People do not need others to die for them so much 
as they need more units in society who will make effort to live 
for each other's benefit. If every key on the piano determined 
grimly to "live its own life" (that is, its own exclusive or selfish 
life) we'd have mighty poor harmony from that instrument. 
Moreover, an expert musician would declare each individual 
key as "no good." 

The first thing, then, in order to develop the habit of right 
and constructive mental influence, is to favor curiosity and 
knowledge of natural laws more, and to favor our accumula- 
tions of convictions less. Our "likes" and "dislikes" often have 
nothing whatever to do with natural law; our likes and dislikes 
often oppose the laws of nature. Natural laws are psycho- 
logical first, foremost and all the time. By studying our own 
mental actions we find how character and personality are con- 
structed. If we do not like the manner of construction so far, 
we must learn to operate mental laws according to the design 
we do want. 

How? Our character selects for us ingredients out of 
food, air and water in order to build according to its own 
nature. A bird eating the same wheat you eat for breakfast 
makes of that wheat feathers, claws, and vitalizes its ability to 
sing. Its bird character does the selecting quite automatically. 
Your character is not the bird's. You could not make feathers 
of that wheat if you wanted to. Your subconscious processes 



PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 33 

make of it tissue, bone, muscle, hair, nails, fluids, etc. But 
here are Mrs. Jones, red-headed and squat; Mr. Brown, bald- 
headed and dignified and tall, and Miss Graham — neurotic, 
esthetic and anaemic, all eating wheat porridge at the break- 
fast table. Mrs. Jones, ignorant of the fact that by thought 
'she can gradually and effectively change her character, allows 
her present character and disposition to do her selecting, and, 
of course, the subconscious processes all work dutifully to 
keep her squat, and mentally dense — all from the same wheat 
porridge, out of the same beverages and water that may be 
drunk, out of the same air breathed by Mr. Brown and Miss 
Graham. Mr. Brown, by the same token, has a subconscious 
mind that keeps him dignified, probably priggish enough to 
lose out on many prospective friendships which would be 
valuable to him. Miss Graham, daintily imbibing the same 
porridge, does not see, of course, that the subconscious mind 
is twisting and perverting her quite natural desires and urges 
into thinned-out, pseudo-enthusiasms for "art," or "bohemian- 
ism," or parlor bolshevism, and thereby building into her, ac- 
cording to her character, the mental influence of still more self- 
fear, which is neurosis. A cobra eating of the same porridge, 
would turn it into a poison so violent as to turn any chemist 
green with envy, — according to its cobra character, and then 
the lawn-rabbit would turn the same wheat, according to its 
character into timidity and fat. 

The subconscious mind builds according to the ideas, 
emotions and pictures which mentally you are holding before 
it. That is the mental influence you are continually playing 
upon yourself; that is the mesmeric or hypnotic influence by 
yourself upon yourself which never ceases and never will cease. 
It will, however, improve or deteriorate according to your 
character. You can change your character by realizing that 
you built it by conscious thinking in the first place, and that its 
reconstruction will be accomplished in the same way. In fact, 
even if one ignores the issue, it is being added to, or some- 
thing is being taken away from it, at all times, without a mo- 
ment's cessation. And the "selecting" which is discussed in the 
foregoing takes place not only with the food eaten, but just 
as effectively out of the air breathed, the water consumed, 
from the stimulation of exercise, and from the collective 



34 PSYCHOLOGY — Personal and Essential 

"auras" of people contacted in everyday life. The nature of 
mind is that it is not quiet for a moment. Just because some 
phases of mind are not in your field of awareness does not 
make such subconscious phases less active than that part which 
you can watch. The subconscious phase is much greater, much 
more active than that phase of mind with which you commonly 
identify yourself. 

But great as is the subconscious mind, it works in line 
with such mental influence as you are able to radiate from 
your aware and conscious feelings, emotions, thoughts and 
aspirations. Bear all this in mind when walking, when danc- 
ing, when swimming, when eating, drinking or resting. Insist 
on the freed activity of your own self; determine to master 
states of consciousness, especially in the emotional field, in- 
stead of allowing them to enslave you. 

Determine to be glad you are in this world; work for, 
demand and expect success. Picture that success as the 
kind that benefits your entire circle of friends and acquaint- 
ances. Picture at the same time that circle as ever widening 
and growing; for much of life is lived thru our contacts, 
friendships and acquaintanceships. Demand that you get more 
than diversion and amusement from reading and from the 
theatre. Expect to see in and thru things, to derive their inner 
meaning, their distillation, their essence, their soul. Such liv- 
ing will enrich the personality, and make you a radiating, mag- 
netic, beneficial unit in society. You will then be a real success. 
And yet, do not forget that the greatest successes often con- 
sider themselves failures. Richelieu regarded himself as a 
failure, — great statesman that he was, he wanted to be a poet. 
He probably would have been a very bad one. Beethoven 
considered himself as a tyro and bungling amateur in music, — 
yet unmistakably he was the greatest master of music that has 
trod this earth. This world is, as it were, a participial class 
in school. Everything ends with "ing." Nothing in the past 
perfect tense ending with "ed" is to be found. To realize this 
will add to the effect of our efforts by lending us a legitimate 
contentment. Yet, let us realize that pursuit of knowledge, of 
happiness, of efficiency and success are methods of carrying out 
the divine command, "Be Ye Perfect," and that the best way 
of obeying that command is to start with self-study. 



PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 35 

"In the Beginning" Means NOW. 

No system of philosophy, no scheme of life, is complete 
without first postulating the eternal, causeless being of an all- 
pervasive intelligence and power. In religion this power is 
called God. Some call that originating point of all life and 
being by the name of Spirit. Some call it the Oversoul. Some 
scientific philosophers call it the Ether, but they know little 
about it. Some apply to It such descriptives as Light, Life, 
Love, Omnipotence, Omniscience, Compassion, etc. Undoubt- 
edly It is the source of ALL. But, again, not to trespass or 
subvert in the least any faith or conception of that ONE, let 
us view the matter just to see if psychology can add anything 
to our clearness of comprehension. 

Psychology says merely that with every different form of 
organism that One manifests and acts only according to what 
that particular organism offers as a "machine" thru which to 
act. Psychology points out that in every so-called "act of j 
providence," machinery seen or unseen was used. If we have 
a prophecy from some one, and that prophecy comes true, we 
must admit that the mind of some man or woman was the in- 
strument thru which it came. If for the major part of my life- 
time I so attuned my mind only to the deepest verities of 
nature, and to altruistic purposes, I have no doubt but that 
even my fancies and my dreams would be clairvoyant of actu- 
alities — past, present or future. If I had my mind so attuned 
that it was hostile to every morbid whim, impervious to de- 
pression, — I know that the one can work, and must then 
work, thru me to radiate health and beneficence on others, and 
that I myself would not be excluded. If, however, my mind 
was carelessly governed; if I allowed facts to fly out, and my 
own prejudices and whims and selfish emotions to rule, then 
the more I prayed for the presence and the inflow of that 
one, the more ill at ease I would become — because that most 
tremendous energy in the universe could do no more than to 
animate the machinery I held up to it. Study, work, willing- 
ness and ability to serve, — these are psychologically, we see, 
the only valid forms of worship. The "blessings" from that 
form of worship are immediately apparent in improved health 
and efficiency, physical, moral, mental, psychic and spiritual. 

True psychology is not so much concerned with teaching 



36 PSYCHOLOGY — Personal and Essential 

students mental tricks. It is concerned utterly and absolutely 
with making the mind a subservient tool and instrument for 
the true self. If "tricks" are needed at any time for purposes 
of demonstration, if the mind has been drilled in correct atti- 
tudes, the ability will be there. What if very Bowery thug 
could do what Houdini does? What if one of such thugs 
went to Houdini for "lessons?" What would Houdini say? 
I do not know how much of a sage that clever prestidigitator 
may be, but I rather think he would send back the denizen of 
the Bowery to some school or other, where a wholesome re- 
spect for the decencies and amenities of human life would first 
be inculcated into him. Houdini's knowledge and ability 
spilled into the machinery which the thug holds up would 
destroy and ruin every one whom the thug thereafter con- 
tacted, and would figuratively send the thug himself to hell. 
For the thug, no matter how or in what manner Houdini 
would teach him, subconsciously would be "selecting" accord- 
ing to his character. And he would thereafter use his "selec- 
tion" according to that same character. That is what most of 
us do after reading or studying the New Testament. Then we 
wonder what mysterious fate hounds us with mental ineffi- 
ciency, restlessness, or physical impairment. Nothing hounds 
us, nothing hampers us, except the veils of misconception 
which we hug the tighter around us in the face of FACTS and 
natural laws. When we can look our own prejudices 
in the face and expose them with the same blithesomeness that 
we perform that service for unwilling Mrs. Jones in the next 
house or Mr. Brown in still the next, a great deal of the 
mystery will dissipate into thin air. 

If you have apparently been inefficient before then, you 
will see clearly why'. You will be able to deal intelligently 
with yourself. You will be able to place yourself. You will 
no longer be a square peg in a round hole. You will be able 
to criticise yourself intelligently, and to encourage yourself 
intelligently. You will avoid the sin of self-condemnation and 
of self-belittling as tho' it were poison. Next to self-praise 
and self-inflation, the greatest crime is self-condemnation. All 
these are disguised, and therefore the most dangerous manifes= 
tations of selfishness. Selfishness means that you are excluding 
knowledge from yourself to the extent that you are excluding 



ed | 



PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 37 

considerations of other folks' welfare. Nature or the ONE 
intends that each human being realize that he is united 
and at one with every other. While we refuse to recognize 
and live according to that FACT in Nature, the one will see 
to it that we "die" again and again, in order that with the 
essential accumulation gathered, we may, refreshed by the 
oblivion of detailed memory, try again and yet again. 

But, in the meantime, let us use our mental influence, 
while we are improving it, according to the knowledg of psy- 
chology we already have. There is not one but may improve 
his value to himself and others by becoming more efficient in 
the business of living. Too many in contemplating abstract 
verities, are like the girl in the missionary school. She was 
undergoing training to become what is known as a medical 
missionary. But she was so imbued with all she was going to 
do for the poor benighted heathen that her mind utterly 
failed to register any of the technique of medicine and of nurs- 
ing which she was there to learn. Of course she was expelle 
in due time, still ineffectually blubbering about the dire fate of 
the poor heathen without her ministrations. Lucky heathen, — 
that she never found her way to them! 

If you are a mother, how much more of a real mother 
you may be by revealing to yourself thru psychology some 
of the wonderful laws concerned in the building up of 
the budding personalities entrusted to your custody. You are 
the Priestess of the one in a far more real sense than any 
mitered dignitary in a temple or cathedral. You can make 
or mar the blueprint of human perfection, which in its soul, 
the child has brought down to earth from God. Learn more 
and yet more how to make conformation to that ideal design 
easy and habitual as the personalities whom you call your 
children begin to mature. 

If you are a father, learn the psychological weight that 
exists, admitted or unadmitted, in the mere fact of being the 
"head of the household." You will learn thru psychology, 
that no matter What You Are, unconsciously you are being 
"selected" as an ideal to follow. Your influence, the actions 
which you conceal from the child, the schemes you never reveal 
to the child, are modifying his own ideal of perfection. Let 
the actions and the schemes at least be definite, if possible, even 



38 PSYCHOLOGY — Personal and Essential 

great. The child is seeing, hearing, and telepathically in his 
subconscious self perceiving and appropriating for the first 
time, and to a great extent from you, his ideas and tendencies 
in regard to the "new" world he is in. It is establishing prece- 
dents. If you are a lawyer or a judge, you will appreciate 
the significance of that. Govern yourself, if possible, that 
the child's list of precedents will not be a category of vague 
and petty and devious items. 

Thru psychology the business executive realizes in his 
relations toward "connections" and subordinates, that through- 
out the complexities of business life there is one simple unity 
easily understood if sympathetic attention be directed toward 
it. That simple, easily learned unity, is Human Nature. Its 
god is integrity; its devil is selfishness. Neither its god nor 
its devil can be done away with, but the best aim in business, 
according to psychology, is to make selfishness subservient to 
integrity. Those executives and captains of industry who have 
followed that principle thru thick and thin, stand at the top ; 
and among those who stand at the top, they are the best 
examples of business success. 

The clerk will see thru psychology that he is not work- 
ing at all to make his living. He will see that he is where 
he is because of necessity. Necessity is self-devised and self- 
induced. It is not a void, but a made thing. He will see, 
if he wishes to advance and to progress, that he must manu- 
- facture a necessity for the "raise." A determination to forge 
ahead is not enough, but it is a necessary item. But over 
and above that determination, there must be a progressive 
accumulation of specific knowledge peculiar to the station 
ahead which is being idealized. When that accumulation has 
grown to so great an extent that "in spirit" you are already 
occupying the higher position and are homesick for it, — then 
you may work in your old position with cheer. It is but a 
matter of a very short time before you'll be at home. 

The mechanic need not think because his employment is 
so thoroughly concerned with physical and material things, 
that an insight into psychology does not touch him vitally. 
Psychology after all is one big department in the science of 
life, and a mechanic as a rule is not dead. In my experience, 
I have yet to find a community of mechanics wherein at least 



PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 39 

75 per cent are not either active or latent inventors. The 
latent ones are kept so by their own inertness, due to a kind 
of hypnosis of "weight," I suppose, that may or may not be 
caused by a sort of psychic reaction from the very metals 
handled. A thorough grounding in the facts regarding mental 
influence would serve to wake them up. We are not yet a 
quarter thru with mechanical inventions, great as the progress 
has been in the last half-century. 

The laborer will find his lot ameliorated by an applica- 
tion of psychological laws. It is a curious fact that the 
roughest laborers often have a keen intuitional appreciation 
of Natural Law. Such knowledge with them often is made 
void of good effects, however, because of ignorance of con- 
ventional culture, tradition, etc., which latter in turn act with 
the power of veritable gods on other strata of society. Psy- 
chology does its bit to bridge the gap, for it shows that the 
methods of advance, of growth, of progress, are the same 
with one member of the race as with the other. The impedi- 
ments of worry, anxiety, fear, etc., for instance, will "play 
hell" with a laborer in his life and environment in much the 
same destructive way that it will act in the life, home and 
environment of the millionaire. 

Professional people and artists are found in great num- 
bers as the keenest students of psychology. They suffer some 
handicap because of their vocabulary, however. Often they 
play hide-and-seek with words. For instance, a destructive 
emotion is poison, it is just as deadly if we shift words and 
call it temperament, or incompatibility, or neurosis. The "sen- 
sitiveness" about which some of them take pride, is selfishness. K 
Take any person extremely susceptible to petty annoyance, — ^ 
tear off the disguise, and you find an extremely selfish person. 
It is not that we are trying to slide out of a difficult situation 
by preaching altruism and ethics — but merely pointing out 
with the finger of psychology why some professional people 
are real (not merely financial) successes, and why others are 
not. 

In all progress toward achievement, whether socially, or 
with the ideal of business success, realize that you have unlim- 
ited power, but that this unlimited power can act only thru 
the efficiency of your mental influence. If the mind is trained, 



40 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 

and its influence is for "increase," for certainty, for success, 
the power will never fail. Think definitely and with con- 
tinuity. I've known imbeciles to think of sublime things. It 
does them no good because they cannot establish in them- 
selves either definiteness or continuity. The monkey is clever, 
but it has not evolved one bit since recorded human history, 
because it utterly lacks continuity. It plays with the sand one 
second, the next second it is in the topmost branch of the 
tree, and the next moment it is grimacing and scratching at 
the bite of a flea with one hand while distractedly reaching 
for a succulent beetle with the other. Is that a picture or even 
a logical caricature of your mental regime? If so, for good- 
ness sake, change it. Ideals and sublime objects of thought 
are not half so valuable psychologically, as the establishment 
of definiteness, integrity, and continuity. I'd rather have a 
Darwin tell me about the habits of the angle worm than listen 
to the sermon some illiterate dodo of a preacher might pour 
into my ear. Again, I'd rather listen to the ideas of a Tal- 
madge, or a Cardinal Newman, than to the "Truth From the 
Other Side" by some greasy, undisciplined and wilfully ignor- 
ant person, for some strange reason called a "medium." 

These, then, are a few of the fundamental things to con- 
sider, and to seek to apply while pursuing further knowledge 
of "applied psychology." 



Lesson III. 
VITAL ENERGY AND CELL CONSCIOUSNESS 

IN a vague, harmless and useless sort of way, everyone 
knows about "vitality." We speak of a person as being 
full of "pep," — meaning by that, that the other is to under- 
stand what we mean. If pressed for a definition, we may 
mean one of a hundred things. The person accused of posses- 
sing vitality and "pep," we might find, may have come under 
that suspicion only thru loudness or incontinence either in 
speech, dress or action. Those who truly possess vitality in 
abundant measure and are well-disposed otherwise, invariably 
have also that indefinable something called magnetism or 
"charm." Their actions are effective — as if fraught with 
more significance than a similar action by another. The 
speech of one abounding in magnetism carries weight, because 
it enforces activity in the imagination of the listener. 

The vital energy may or may not work out as physical 
strength. Napoleon was truly a dynamo of vital energy, 
exceedingly magnetic, and yet physically he was by no means 
a giant. Mohammed, who by help of his mental and vital 
magnetism inaugurated a system of religious thought which 
today promises to engulf all the Orient with the possible ex- 
ception of the Mongols, himself was not a strong man. He 
was puny and an epileptic. Loyola founded the strongest or- 
der within the Catholic church after he had been dismissed 
with a permanently impaired body from a hospital. These 
persons, and hundreds like them in the world today, are ex- 
amples of all that is. tied up in that rather obscure phrase which 
is becoming popular, — "The redirection of the energy." We 
shall try to discuss and clarify that phrase presently. 

In the meantime, let it be understood that no one knows 
exactly what vital energy is. Neither does anyone know 
exactly what electricity is. But it is safer to hold some con- 
ception regarding electricity, conforming to its known actions 
and possibly explanatory of them, than to deny its existence. 

4! 



42 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 

One can say All is God, God is Love, Pain is Error, grasp 
a live wire after a trolley accident, and be electrocuted. This 
may cause some to elevate an eyebrow, but whether or not 
the eyebrow is elevated, it is true — and a truth-resenting mind 
is not progressing. The results of holding erroneous con- 
ceptions regarding the vital energy of the body, may for all 
we know, prove as dangerous, tho' probably not so spectacular, 
as when we try to dissipate the results of electrical action by a 
play upon abstractions. 

Indeed, it will not harm matters to use an abstract state- 
ment as proof. For instance, the statement that every known 
energy and power in the universe is the manifestation of one 
fundamental and universal energy, — is an abstraction. Yet 
it seems so self-evident, so axiomatic to the thinking mind, that 
science does not hesitate even in its material speculations to 
acquiesce to it as a prime hypothesis. Now, our simile, used 
just a moment ago, becomes more valuable. We see that the 
very electricity, industrially and commercially used, which 
there we mentioned by indirection, is one of the manifestations 
of that one universal energy. We imagine it to be about the 
most marvelous discovery, considering the almost miraculous 
ramifications of its uses, that man ever made or ever will make. 
And yet look at the clumsy wire coil around the magnet; the 
ponderous metallic dynamo; the sloppy storage tanks and vats 
of corroding minerals ! Wonderful things can be accomplished 
with the energy conveyed by the cables from those same tanks. 
How came it into the tanks? It was transformed into a con- 
ductible energy, we hear the reply, — from a grosser form of 
non-conductible power — from steam churning the pistons of 
an engine, or from water turning mill-wheels or turbines. 

In the form it assumes when leaving the "power-house" 
it is a very different thing. Movements of great force were 
available from the energy before it was transformed into 
electricity, the turning of wheels for manufacture, for trans- 
portation, etc. But once the same energy has been turned into 
electrical energy, those movements are at once dropped down 
to the bottom of the list of things that it can perform, as the 
least important. We find that energy so transformed can be 
turned into light, into heat, into a chemical agent and reagent, 
into a transmitting agent for sound as in the telephone, into 



PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 43 

a medium for the transmission of other impulses as in the 
telegraph; to make opacity transparent as in the X-ray; to 
detect impulses in a field of energy more subtle than itself, as 
in the wireless apparatus. 

How Do We Appropriate Energy? 

We live and move and have our being not only in an 
ocean of universal intelligence, but likewise in an ocean of 
energy. By all the acts and functions which go to make up 
the mere act of living, we appropriate each one, according to 
his mentally fixed standard, our quota of this energy. Any 
person who says he has not enough energy and vitality is lying, 
for in truth any person has a universe full of it at his disposal, 
and, if not too greedy, that should be enough. It is as if 
a sardine in the middle of the Pacific Ocean were to complain 
about the lack of water. 

How Do We Transform It? 

But we forget that each and every one of us is a peram- 
bulating and walking trans forming power house in a universal 
Niagara of energy, — an energy so terrific that every visible 
form of it is but a weak reflection of some principle in it. 
Psychology would bid us recall its only dogma at this point, 
that Man is Not a physical being, — but a psychic being living 
in a physical machine. All the transforming, therefore, must 
be psychically done. Your quota is always the amount you 
can transform. All psychical action takes place in accordance 
with the kind of thought you think and the manner in which 
you think it, — in accordance with the emotion or mood you 
entertain and the amount of control you exercise during its 
entertainment. 

A Common "Snag" 

To hold a "small calibre" conception in regard to that 
energy, therefore, limits its action down to the level of your 
erroneous notion. When brought down to so base a level of 
action, it then disappoints, sickens, thwarts and even kills you. 
Error kills the person who nurtures it, even if the person 
worships the error and calls it Truth, Religion, or Science. 
Altho' the energy in the ether and in the air is superlatively 
powerful, yet it is so delicate and subtle, that even our thoughts 
in regard to it, or in regard to anything else, swerve it, direct 



44 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 

it, bind or release its action. If we ignore it, we are as the 
fish denying the presence of water. It is fortunate only that 
our ignoring of it does not lessen the quantity available for 
others, any more than it would matter if some poor lone fish 
were to ignore the existence of the water in which it swims. 

The Machinery for Transformation 

Once more, to re-enter into the power house illustration. 
Man is a psychic power house. That is to say, with each 
breath he breathes, he is imbibing this energy, and every 
mechanism in his being, psychic, ghostly if you will, as well 
as physical, sets about to transform it into something as 
specifically characteristic of himself as commercial electricity 
is characteristic of the concrete power house at the foot of 
the waterfall. He is subconsciously converting it into human 
electricity, — vitality and strength, whether physical, moral, 
mental, psychic, — or all combined. The energy taken in, we 
saw, is the source or creator of all other energies. Hence, 
it is probably a reasonable surmise that the physically creative 
organs and their psychic correspondences specialize this current 
in the first place. It is then ready for the use and the direction 
of the imagination, desire, and will of the individual. 

If the specializing functions are abused, impairment will 
result. If I went into a power house, at the foot of Niagara 
Falls, and deliberately vandalized the most important unit of 
machinery in the place for the mere sensuous joy of hearing the 
wheels hum or to watch the sparks fly, the wires from that 
plant would not thereafter carry as much electricity as wires 
from other power houses. But let us look closely just what 
goes to make up vandalism in the human power house. Is it 
the organs and act of creation plus the various perversions 
and inversions of the latter? Is it the oft-quoted "conspiracy 
of silence" on the part of parents, and the consequent forcing 
of little May and little Jimmie to gather furtively, information 
most important to later health and peace of mind? Is it all 
the current rasping about purity, the upshot of which seems 
to be the doing away with physiology by legislation? Is it the 
"double" standard that says man may indulge the lust of his 
eyes but that woman must not? 

"Sabotage" In the Power House 

Humankind is suffering from a vandalism that is being 



PSYCHOLOGY — Personal and Essential 45 

currently perpetrated in this regard. Of this there can be little 
doubt, if we look around. Only 20 per cent of adults have 
really anywhere near the normal and abundant quota of 
physical and mental vitality to carry on the business of living 
successfully. But in regard to the popular notion that crim- 
inal tendencies, insanity, etc., for the most part, originate in 
the perverse practices, we bear in mind conclusions of Jung, 
Silberer, and Dr. White — the latter's authoritative review of 
causes for sub-normality in the federal prisons of the United 
States, dismisses perverse practices out of the possible category 
with a brief paragraph of about six lines. There is nothing 
to it. But there is a great deal to the diabolical fears and 
bugaboos parrotted down from one generation of ignoramusses 
to the next, usually during those years when a child is still 
miraculously susceptible to suggestion, — picturing in pictures 
that arise from Hell "what will happen" if the child should 
now, or at any future time "do" this or that. There is an 
item of real vandalism, and there is no need to mystify our- 
selves with conjectures. Undue shaming of a child, if ever 
as a race we develop sense, will be penalized as murder is now 
penalized. 

A child rushed up to its mother to know the meaning of 
an indecent word she had heard. (Why are there indecent 
words, anyway? What, after all, is the difference between a 
belly and an abdomen, or between a gut and an intestine? In 
older civilizations the ribald song was composed, and could 
only be composed of the same words used in the sophist's 
academy, the orator's rostrum, or the theatre.) The child 
was agog with desire for information. The mother slapped it 
violently and sent it whimpering to bed. That mother, no 
matter how saintly her deportment might have been in the 
street, in society, or in the church, by that action proved her- 
self an indecent woman. By that inadvertence, surely, she 
transferred her shame to the child. Shame is the mould on 
mental filth. Filth of that kind is a matter of self-devised 
and self-inflicted attitudes. No act or fact in Nature is either 
pure or impure. It is one's own motive, character, attitude 
and thought that makes of it for any given individual one or 
the other. If one has nothing to transfer to the child but 
anxieties and prejudices and bugaboos in regard to sex mat- 



46 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 

ters, it is probably a thousand times better to keep up with 
the "conspiracy of silence" than to break it. If our minds 
are continually clogged with such mental debris, — and if it 
is true that the condition of the body reflects the condition 
of the mind, — here then is one of the main causes of all 
that train of self-poisonings, constipations, atrophies and mal- 
formations, physical and mental, which go to make up the 
dictionary of human ills. Elimination of mental debris is as 
necessary as the elimination of physical waste. 

Speculative Definitions and Comment 

The cosmic universal energy, first translated or trans- 
formed into human terms, again is called by various names 
and descriptives. Some bluntly call it the sex urge, which is 
incomplete and deceptive, tho' certainly in part true. Some 
philosophers say it can all be summed up in the word "desire." 
Schopenhauer called it the "Will To Be." The Psycho- 
analysts call it by the arbitrary, but rather expressive word, 
"The Libido." This libido, like all other faculties now sub- 
conscious, must in the course of evolution be made utterly sub- 
servient to the enlightened human will. Even in the present 
juncture of human development, it is the accompanist or vital- 
izer for every action whether physical or mental. Without 
the control of the will, it, like mind, is never quiescent, but fol- 
lows along the grooves of old habits, old fears, old memories, 
striving to give them life and even physical manifestation, — 
such as the deposits of acids, colonies of "rebel" cell growths, 
tumors, malformations, etc. From the literature of mysticism, 
plus the better works on psycho-analysis, one would think that 
it is this very energy which acts most powerfully in making 
of man a saint, an adept in the manipulation of occult forces, 
or in the orient, the holy yogi. To quote from one of our 
former books, — "When stain (meaning all that is conveyed 
by the term 'mental debris' in former paragraphs) is no longer 
possible, the same force of the 'libido' seeking higher expres- 
sions becomes the medium of illumination. Instead of barrier 
to 'seeing' and understanding, it becomes aperture for apprecia- 
tion and comprehension of seen and unseen realities. Instead 
of a creative matrix of woes, while defiled by our fears and 
anxieties and selfish indulgences, it now transcends itself into 
a tractable power for tolerant understanding and keen discern- 



PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 47 

ment. Erotomania becomes spiritual passion for the ideal, 
an ally, a motive power aiding in yet greater transcensions 
over material limitations of mind and body." 

However, this is a mere "outline" and a more practical 
view of this phase of "energy direction" would be more to 
the point. A careful and considerate discussion of the subject 
would require many volumes, and then would leave the mat- 
ter incomplete. Psychology, far from claiming the "last word" 
in the matter, far from dogmatizing, declares only that dogma 
is fatal. Let us see, however, before leaving the subject, if 
we can gather anything of help from the following picture : 

Is There Anything "To" This Parable? 

We will imagine a man of uncertain age, — he may be 
young, or he may be old, it does not matter, — stationed as 
the lone caretaker of a great house. He seems always to have 
been a prisoner therein, and within the walls that surround 
the grounds. Since "finding" himself here he has known only 
the kitchen, that is to say, the "utility room," of the place. 
He has available an oil well in a part of the grounds, and a 
distillation manufactory in fairly good order distills as much 
of it as he needs into the form of gasoline. This he uses to 
warm himself, to cook his food, to minister to his physical or 
animal wants and needs. We will fancy that there is an exhil- 
iration about the distilled product, which tempts him to com- 
mit excesses and debauches with it. But he soon learns that 
because the reactions to such actions are rather drastic, it is 
best to limit them, and he finds indeed that they are self- 
limiting. He was content for a long time to minister, with 
the energy available from the fluid distillations, only to his 
creature comforts, his physical and animal needs and wants. 
But he is no longer content to do so. Something about the 
impalpable exhiliration' emanating and influencing him, does 
not allow him to rest. Discontent drives him to investigate 
further into the house. Presently he finds a room containing a 
library. It is cold and the books are covered with the dust of 
ages. He now has a new use for the heating which his supply 
of the fuel oil warrants. He builds in the necessary piping 
and installs his radiators, and finds that to the extent he 
removes the dust from the books, to that extent can he spend 
his time profitably indeed. He does not cease using the com- 



48 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 

modity for strictly utilitarian purposes, — but by no means does 
he neglect the new opportunities which it has opened up to 
him. 

Perchance in the library room, he now finds a book 
descriptive of the very house in which he is stationed. He 
learns things about it he never suspected. Suppose that he 
puts items he reads together, and finally finds a way to pick 
the locks of still other rooms. Maybe he finds a music room. 
He improves his opportunity there, — warming and lighting 
the room with still the same supply — which now he finds help- 
ing him in three departments of his "house," — namely, the 
physical or utilitarian, — the mental, or "library," and his 
sense of the aesthetic, or the "music room." He neglects none 
of these. Presently, because he is diligent, he actually evolves 
a way of converting the gasoline into power thru a machine — 
and that power thru still other converters and dynamos, in 
turn he learns how to transform into electricity. He finds 
queer, half-built, incomplete but ingenious machines every- 
where he looks now, for one becomes strangely intuitive as one 
sympathetically and earnestly explores the interior of the house 
called "consciousness." He finds an X-ray machine, incom- 
plete probably, but in time he completes it, and then he dem- 
onstrates to himself that the walls of his house are not a totally 
hopeless prison, for when the machine is in good trim, he can 
see thru those self-same walls. He may, because he has con- 
verted his gasoline into electricity, even find and use a wire- 
less apparatus. Then his imprisonment is truly ended, for his 
caretaking of the house becomes a pleasure. He can now send 
and receive messages to and fro with other caretakers of such 
houses. It may be that occasionally he can even send mes- 
sages to the "Landlord" or to one who knows everything pos- 
sible about house construction, and knows the laws of con- 
struction. He will begin then to comprehend laws of archi- 
tecture — the secrets of dynamics. As he goes on, he sees his 
only source of dissatisfaction and confinement was not the 
walls. Neither was his unhappy condition entirely caused by 
his ignorant (tho' legitimate) use of the "gasoline." The 
cause of his confinement was: pinning down of its use exclu- 
sively to the satisfaction of bodily needs and appetites. 

In short, the subconscious mind, because of Natural Law, 



PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 49 

is under the compulsion of progressively refining and extending 
the channels of usefulness of u the libido," with the ideal of an 
all-knowing and perfect human being always before it. 

Occasionally that urge By the Same Natural Law is for 
the act of physical creation, according to your sex polarity, 
This may be deplorable in the eyes of those who are quite sure 
that they are more proper and more pure than Nature, but 
Nature evidently is not sending in payment of regular dues 
to the Purity League. She does not act according to the code 
of the Puritan, in fact, she playfully afflicted the Puritan with 
dyspepsia, witchcraft and gloom. Nature is ever ready to aid 
those who study her to become her masters. She is incapable 
of helping those who arbitrarily legislate against her without 
any attempt to understand. Laws in this regard are only one 
more sly attempt on the part of man to escape the painful 
necessity of thinking. An unworldly pose will not answer the 
purpose. It also is a cheap substitute for thought. And evo- 
lution decrees that we think, and act in accordance with our 
best thought. No excuse will palliate swerving from this 
course. /'We dare not make a dogma nor an unrepealable law 
even of our best thought. We can act in accordance with it, 
but we must hold ourselves a living question mark for further 
illumination, individually and racially, or we stagnate, rot, or 
are enslaved by the uncivilized. We must learn to have an 
ideal and a standard, to be true to the ideal and the standard, 

but to CHANGE THE IDEAL AND STANDARD WHEN REASON AND 
INTUITION DICTATE. / 

Probably the greatest psychological mistake lies in men- 
tally pinning this nerve energy down to the one function of 
propagation. We observed formerly that it has no recourse 
but to work according to the deepest laid personal convictions. 
If such pinning down is the thought, the person must burn in 
the sexual excitement which he constantly stirs up by main- 
taining that attitude. Moreover, tho' not given to violence 
personally, I can sympathize with the husband or wife of such 
a person giving the other vigorous treatments with a baseball 
bat, and not absent treatments either. That attitude is the 
cause of untold misery and unhappiness in domestic life; the 
chronic mental resentment on the part of the more intelligent 
of the two becomes a manufactory in time of neuroses and even 



{ 



50 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 

physical disease. If there are children, they are truly to be 
pitied. And yet bestiality will be defended often as not, by the 
person sunken in it, with bible quotations and what not. Prob- 
ably by the "unpardonable sin," the writers of that book meant 
the dragging down of its texts to validate bestiality. If not, 
at least I hope that is what they had in mind. If I had my 
way, I should make it an unpardonable sin to quote even a 
Peruna almanac for such a purpose. 

Metaphysics 

We have finished for the time with the subject of Vital 
Energy. We imagined the universe as flooded with an ocean 
of energy, and the vital energy of each organized life as a cell 
therein. Each cell is of the same original power, but special- 
ized, "personalized," and "transformed" in hundreds of 
various ways, in ways enforced by the kind of "machines" you 
have equipped in the power house of your mind and emotions. 
Man, psychically, therefore, can be considered as a more or 
less evolved cell in the organism called the universe. 

But there is an old guiding post which the medieval 
scholars used in all their efforts of learning, consisting of the 
phrase "As above, so below." It means to say that anything 
true of the bigness of things, in some analogous way is true 
in the littleness of things, or vice versa. So we find that the 
conception of man being a cell in a spiritually organized uni- 
verse, is carried out in miniature quite graphically throughout 
the physical structure not only of man, but of all living 
organisms. 

It is the purpose of psychology to teach that substance 
and matter are subject to mental law. Mind does not rule 
matter intelligently, however, until it recognizes its own pow- 
ers. Mere assertion and affirmation are not enough; they do 
not constitute knowledge or realization. However, when we 
have learned to see and cognize matter and substance in terms 
of the energies which compose them, we are nearer to that 
mark. For we see that the subtlest and most powerful ener- 
gies, those, in fact, which are the sources of all visible ener- 
gies, — are mentally directed. 

Worlds of Which "You" are God 

We look at the physical body, or at any organ or tissue 
taken therefrom, and it seems incomprehensible how so gross 



PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 51 

a lump of substance can in anywise be influenced by mind. 
But suppose that our vision had the acuteness of a high- 
powered microscope. We would then see that the tissue or 
the organ is composed of millions upon millions of cells; 
world upon worlds of them. Considering their infinitesimal 
minuteness, they are mobile in their sphere about as much as 
other animals, including man, are in theirs. Thru investiga- 
tion in that channel of science which has devoted itself to 
researches concerning cell life, it is apparent that the life of 
the cells is one of intelligence and direction. H. S. Jennings, 
authority in this field, says: "The cell shows remarkable 
pertinacity when continuing its attempts to put forth efforts 
to accomplish this (the taking of food) in various ways, and 
it shows remarkable pertinacity in continuing its attempts to 
ingest the food when it meets with difficulties. Indeed, the 
scene could be described in much more vivid and interesting 
way by the use of terms still more anthropomorphic in ten- 
dency." 

The cell selects and absorbs its requirements of food by 
wrapping itself around the particle to be devoured. It appears 
to possess not only an intelligence, but also a power of perfect 
response to its desires or mental stimuli. If it is in need of a 
limb for some special purpose, immediately there appears a 
temporary outgrowth of the transparent outer layer of the 
soft protoplasmic body. It forms a gas in its body at will to 
rise in a liquid, or as readily discharges the gas to sink lower. 
It immediately creates a protective shell around itself if placed 
in water containing an acid. It is perceived to recognize its 
enemies and either fights and devours them or hides itself for 
protection. It knows its kind. It seems to have the ability 
"to be what it wishes to be" in a startling and literal degree. 
The muscle cell in the muscle works with an apparent omnis- 
cience of the laws of expansion, elasticity, resilience and con- 
traction,— as do the heart cells. The glandular cells work 
with just as miraculous a knowledge of secretions — thyroids, 
toxins, digestive fluids. The white blood corpuscles, which are 
cells, labor in harmony with the laws of food absorption and 
distribution. The brain and ganglion cells work with a knowl- 
edge of the mechanisms involved in the effect of thought and 
nerve vibrations. So do the cells not only have memory and 



52 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 

intelligence, but they have, moreover, the specialized knowl- 
edge of their particular field of work. And according to 
what tendency will all this work, of a million different kinds, 
be done? 

The elan vital, — the vital energy, which concerned the 
first half of this chapter, let us remember, carries in solution 
the psychic chemicalization of your thoughts and emotions, in 
short of your character. That elan vital of yours, that vital 
energy, is appropriated and regarded as "life" by the cells, in 
the same way that you regard your appropriation of the uni- 
versal energy as your life. What kind of a universal mind 
and vitality are you furnishing to your subjects? You are 
their universe and their god. You are the supreme being so 
far as they are concerned. If by anxiety and worries and all 
manner of exclusive and selfish emotions you demand of them 
neuroses and blues, they cannot do otherwise but obey what to 
them is a divine command; moreover, they will duly build for 
you some physical defect. Their logic, if such it may be called, 
seems to run in this wise : "If you are worried, anxious, blue, 
morbid, — surely it must be because you want something to 
warrant these attitudes. Let us make haste to bring it about 
forthwith." 

The actions of cells, their display of definite memory and 
intelligence, forces us to the conclusion that they possess not 
only a vague something for which we must apologize before 
we call it consciousness; they possess consciousness imprinted 
with an accumulation of experience, remembered and sequen- 
tial, — and that is intelligence. Not only their work, but even 
their play (for they do play, as can be proved by watching that 
cell known as the "amoeba," readily visible under the micro- 
scope) — in a general way is all designed for the growth and 
maintenance of their "universe," which is your body. Psy- 
chological insight leads inevitably to the conclusion that there 
is indeed a mental or conscious side to all matter. Especially 
is that so with this phase of matter which we are now dis- 
cussing. For convenience we may call this phase "physicality," 
composed as it is of these interesting cells. 

From an analysis of the construction of matter, we find 
that the constituents of the cell are, as we all know, single 
atoms and molecules. (Molecules are double, triple, etc., or 



PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 53 

"group" atoms.) Atoms, as also is now conjectured by 
science, are infinitesimal "solar systems," — an electron of one 
polarity acting as the sun, and numbers of electrons of the 
opposite polarity acting as planets. The whirling of these 
electronic mites is so intensely rapid that in the atom we have 
the first illusion or apparency of that solidness which in higher 
syntheses becomes a major characteristic of all material or 
physical substance. The cell, as the second or third synthesis 
of such vortices, must of course be in possession of the collective 
life and consciousness of its component atoms. Says Her- 
schel : "All that has been predicated of atoms, their attrac- 
tions and repulsions, according to the primary laws of their 
being, only becomes intelligible when we assume the presence 
of mind." Thus, as the atom is seen to be impelled in part 
by some sort of memory, so the cell, possessing the aggregate 
memory of its atoms, must be said to have some kind of intel- 
ligence; it stands to reason that it has more than mere con- 
sciousness, — it has, to be exact, also the result of experience, 
not only its own, but of its components. It must have a more 
complex memory and a more complete one than its component 
forms. Hence all that Herschel says of the atom may be 
raised to its third power and applied even more appropriately 
to the cell. 

The understanding of the cell to be a mental as well as 
physical creature shows to the student the actual point of im- 
pingement for the suggestions or thought attitudes that sink 
deeply enough. The cells have no working orders, no initia- 
tive but that. They are the visible beings visibly carrying out 
your "orders," for illness or for health, for an efficient or for 
a deficient body. A thorogoing study of this phase alone, 
inclusive of correspondences and analogies, will give an under- 
standing of the "how" of the bald head here, the abundant 
locks over there, the narrow six-footer and the genial, broad 
four-foot-one-er ; the shape of the features and head, the cast of 
the countenance, good looks or bad, brown eyes, black or blue, 
the gait, the posture, the general decency or general "cussed- 
ness" of any given person. In the cell we see a perfect ex- 
ample of the correlation of thought and action. Its body 
always corresponds with the attitude of its mind. Given a 
thought that it needs a limb or three or four limbs, the limbs 



54 PSYCHOLOGY — Personal and Essential 

at once appear as projections. If the need was but temporary, 
the limbs are reabsorbed in the globular body. If the need 
is impressed upon it as permanent, the limbs so produced re- 
main permanently. It endows itself in just such fashion with 
whatever limbs, adaptabilities and capabilities it needs, and in 
giving birth or division to new cells, it is shown that these 
capabilities become fixed in the type. 

But psychology shows that for the development of some 
desirable capability, or the elimination of another that is not 
desirable, the urge must start with you, as a conscious, think- 
ing "Lord" of your cell universe. Altho' the ability of the 
cells is such that they can build into your body, brain, nerves 
and psychic organism anything that you desire, still before 
they can do anything like that for you, you must desire it 
definitely, consistently, and persistently. You must learn to 

! master and to eliminate those desires and mental attitudes 
which will conflict with the main desire. You must learn to 
uncover biases, fears, and other sources of weakness which 
are asleep or dreaming in you. You must learn to throw out 
unadmitted envies, hatreds, greeds, and other sources of in- 
justice to others, which, tho' repudiated by you consciously, 
may still be dominating you unconsciously. 

Millions of cells are dying and being born in the system 
constantly. In the interval between its "death" and "rebirth," 
why is it not probable that the mind of the cell is merged with 
your (aggregate) subconscious mind? If that is so, then it 
will be reborn with a saturation of what it has bathed in, — 
and fn that interval it has bathed in your predominating ideas 
and qualities, — in the deepest hopes and fears, in the funda- 
mental urges and repulsions underlying your character. It is 
reborn of the protoplasm of the bodily system physically ; it is 
reborn of your "elan vital," your vital energy psychically. 
With each such "rebirth" it embodies more specifically time 
after time the actual physical and mental and psychic results 
to which the person is progressively entitling himself. 

The entire physical body thus renews itself in not more 
than five years, and the probability is that the transformation 
takes place in less time than that. It is certain that character 
and faculty transformation can and does take place in less 
time than that under intelligent and enthusiastic effort. But 



PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 55 

what is the good of the transformation if the new cells must 
multiply and continue working along preconceived ideas, per- 
sonal and racial habits, and all the doleful horde of current 
superstitions? 

It is erroneous to imagine that only New Thoughtists, 
Christian Scientists, Theosophists, Spiritualists, and the like, 
appreciate the value of mental states as related to physical 
welfare. The most authoritative representatives of science 
have swung over to a vivid appreciation of the psychological 
factors in all biological phenomena. The leaders of medical 
science especially are by no means ignorant of the significant 
things pointed out in this chapter. It is only the numerous 
tribe of dodos (the dodo is a big, foolish bird now extinct, but 
so foolish that it probably does not know it) among the 
medical profession who would deny the influence of mind over 
the cell activities of the body. In the "bulk" sense, how- 
ever, science, not excluding medicine, has been and is yet an 
unconscionable laggard. Why and how? Because it- strives 
only in what seems to be a joking way to do materially 
(glands, serums, inoculations, etc.) what must be done, if it is 
ever to be done at all, with more appreciation of the psychic 
and mental laws involved. We are speaking of the inability 
which "bulk" science shows, to get away from the popular 
dogma and superstition that it is "natural" for the human 
being, immediately the period of youth is past, to spend the 
remainder of his life under impairment. 

The deductions of psychology and the observations of 
physiology have been both drawn upon to afford the picture 
of cell life and its significance as here presented. If we can 
boil down any reasonable conclusion therefrom, surely that 
conclusion will not be hostile to the idea that renewal and 
rejuvenation of the body is practicable. But in making any 
experiment or effort at such practice, we can now see how 
futile would be the endeavor if we eliminate the factor of 
mental attitude. The internal operations of the subconscious 
mind, once understood, the subject becomes more clear. If 
you are subjecting the vital energy of the body to cyclones of 
temper, to drouths of depression, floods and storms of emo- 
tionalism, and the destructive fires of greed and passion, then 
a world of surface thinking and wishing for health or youth- 



56 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 

fulness will do you no good. Why? Because your thinking 
and wishing then acts only as a disguise or cover, under which 
vour "self-aging" or "self-destruction" goes on more virulently 
than if it were going on exposed. 

The term of the average human life is todav longer than 
it was a hundred years ago. This was accomplished by an 
elimination from the mind of man of the debris of theological 
twaddle, bigotry and superstition piled up during the medieval 
period. The mind, thus partly cleaned up, a phvsical cleaning 
up appeared as a reflection of that first or "real" house-clean- 
ing. Incomplete and unfinished as that cleaning-up was, yet 
the "reflection" appeared in the form of hygiene, sanitation. 
Soap and water replaced musks and perfumes. The odor of 
cleanliness replaced the bogus odor of sanctity. 

It is a pity that the main bulk of scientists, and other 
"middleman" leaders of thought, have not yet completely 
availed themselves of the splendid data and theories afforded 
by psychology. To do that would be the first step in making 
human life more ample and more joyful directly. To use 
science in the improvement of machines is a pursuit to the 
same end, it is true, but the pursuit by that method is indirect. 
This is so wrong, now, that it is little wonder entire communi- 
ties sporadically attempt demonstrations of physical perfect- 
ability. Bunglesome as many such efforts prove to be, the in- 
tensity or religious zeal of them can be condoned when it is 
seen that guilt of a great delinquency still rests with those in 
possession of scientific knowledge sufficient to improve the 
fundamental ideas of the race in these matters, but who refuse 
to do so. The "conviction of the race" is a tough taskmaster. 
The race conviction right there proves itself to be stronger 
even than the penetration of the scientific mind. For the race 
conviction is able to steer the dodo scientist's penetration 
away from the bogus character of its pet superstition — which 
is — the "naturalness" of human impairment. Having sub- 
mitted to that trick of hypnotism, the scientist in the face of 
that bugaboo becomes as blunt and as unreasoning as any 
other imbecile we might see in some ten-cent theatre during 
the act of Marvelous Marvelo, the Hypnotist. We bring him 
testimony of the lower kingdoms, of plant and animal and 
cell — it passes unnoticed. Analogy of a sudden becomes inad- 



PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 57 

missable. Tho' he may have trained his brain to its present 
scientific proportions by the power of his thoughts, yet con- 
fronted with that particular race superstition, his child-like 
nature (what psycho-analysis would call his infantile complex) 
takes charge, and once more he will repeat as in his infancy 
that thought is a secretion of the brain as bile is a secretion of 
the liver. 

And the ordinary person, "even as you and I," continues 
to find out the truth about his real life and his real health 
through experience and independent study such as this presen- 
tation, only because the unadmitted working hypothesis of 
the scientific man has been that it is "natural" for human 
beings more or less chronically to be sick or impaired. 

Leading scientists and physicists the world over today 
are postulating a psychological basis as underlying matter and 
existence. In time this will of course bring logically in its train 
the "scientific" corroboration to prove thought as the dynamic 
power used, consciously or unconsciously, in modifications of 
that existence. Once the materialistic bogey even yet so dear 
to many mediocre scientists and practitioners has become 
odious by losing in fashion and orthodoxy, ways of improve- 
ment will open more widely. And such changes in the learned 
world are in the way of occurring here and now. It seems, 
however, that the new light, in spreading, has to leap from 
the enlightened leaders of science and thought directly to the 
laymen, unperceived and over the heads of the "middleman." 
For a time a certain "middleman" portion of science and the 
professions appears inclined to remain impervious. 






"/ do not believe that matter is inert, acted upon by an 
outside force. To me it seems that every atom is possessed 
by a certain amount of primitive intelligence." — Edison. 



Lesson IV. 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND 

IF WE observe keenly, we find that but a very small frac- 
tion of the life of the personality results from a direct 
effort of the will. The blood circulates without a con- 
scious thought directed toward it. Breathing, digestion, assimi- 
lation and elimination all "take care of themselves." These 
processes are automatic. We may and often should change 
or modify some features of a given automatism — and that sort 
of "modifying for the better" was implied in the recommen- 
dations set down about the proper uses of Air, Water, Food, 
Exercise and Mental Influence; but the bodily processes are, 
and will remain essentially automatic. 

When we speak of anything in a living organism as being 
"automatic" — precisely what do we mean? In the preceding 
chapters we observed those processes of organic life which as 
a rule are unnoticed, — which, in fact, short of some instrument 
trrat would combine more facilities for observation than con- 
tained both in X-ray and microscope, cannot be seen. Viewing 
the complexity in the life and work of cells, tissues, nerves, 
muscles and organs, we had to admit the supervision there of 
mind and intelligence, or else throttle reason and deny plain 
inference from observed fact. The physical organism is but 
an aggregate of billions of minute lives, of uncounted legion- 
aries made up of intelligent workers. Intelligent tho' they be, 
something directs them into combining their efforts in groups. 
Something specializes them for particular lines of work and 
induces them to segregate to the end that their own bodies and 
thru their own efforts the organs, tissues, and all that goes to 
make up the physical system, may be constructed and then 
kept in repair and in vigor. What is "that something"? 

Let us begin our reply in this fashion : You as a person- 
ality, as the Mr. Jones, Miss Brown, or Mrs. Smith who are 
reading this treatise, are only a fraction of your real self. 

58 



PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 59 

That fraction of your consciousness with which you identify 
yourself, from a mathematical standpoint, would probably be 
too small to warrant bother. A sentimental mathematician 
(if we could imagine a mathematician who worked according 
to his impulses and enthusiasms, according to his likes and dis- 
likes) would impetuously erase it. But Nature, or that phase 
of YOURSELF which knows all Nature's laws, is an exact 
mathematician. Nature is not impetuous. And, curiously 
enough, to you — the smallest fraction in the^problem of indi- 
viduality, She has given you, the conscious, arguing, doubting, 
cheating, loving and hating, waking and working YOU, the 
possibility of power and mastery of the entire equation. She 
has given you the job of being boss, — the position of com- 
mander. In precise psychological terms, you as the boss are 
not even a person; you are the objective phase of your mind. 
In all, you are objective mind commanding yourself, the sub- 
conscious mind. 

The Objective Mind 

But, someone may question, I command my subconscious 
mind to do things for me, and it does not do them; how am I 
to account for that? It is to be accounted for by the fact that 
with very few exceptions we are all as yet very ignorant com- 
manders. 'As a matter of fact, too many people are hoping, 
yearning and wishing, and not commanding at all. 

Fancy now a captain of a steamship. He stays a good 
deal in his cabin enjoying the pictures on the wall, rhapsodizing 
about the motion of the ship as it glides over the moonlit waves. 
There appear shoals ahead, and the boat must stop. Of a 
sudden the captain realizes that he doesn't know a blooming 
thing about navigation. The next morning he pretends to 
consult his charts, but does not know how to read them. He 
finds the ship is surrounded by rocks. He does not know his 
longitude nor latitude. Day after day goes by. His crew 
brews mutiny. He yearns and wishes that they remain loyal 
and keep the ship in good trim. He frets and he fumes. This 
distracts him so much that he forgets what port he was bound 
for when he started out. He has no goal. Now he com- 
mands this, and now he commands the other of his subordi- 
nates. It does not matter what he commands. In a 
situation like this the REAL command overshadowing the con- 



60 PSYCHOLOGY — Personal and Essential 

sciousness of all the subordinates is this : We have no Cap- 
tain, LET US DO AS WE JOLLY WELL PLEASE. And they do, 
and the "captain" that was "gets it in the neck." 

The more he had learned of navigation, and of the 
duties of his own crew, even of the machinery contained in his 
own ship, the more of a real commander would he have been. 
His crew did not want to become a disorganized mob of muti- 
neers; the ignorant captain himself forced them into that kind 
of action. The more knowledge he had stowed away in him- 
self regarding all that concerned his position, the more could 
he have depended upon his commands being carried out auto- 
matically and without friction. One must know the thing 
commanded. 

Psychology is in the business of accumulating and sup- 
plying that knowledge. Psychology says that the position of 
the personality, or the objective phase of mind, is analogous 
to the position of the captain of the ship, but that the relation- 
ship is more intimate, because in a sense, the entire "crew" 
that makes for the success or failure of the individual has been 
created by the person in the manner of reactions given to 
experience. 

Psychology says that you, the captain, have Initiative 
and that is all. Your first assistant or "vice-captain" or pilot, 
as it were, is Discrimination, — the ability to form right con- 
clusions from mental or physical experience. If you have not 
with you your "vice-captain," therefore, you will meet disaster 
during tfTe very first emergency. Encourage Discrimination to 
improve itself in every possible opportunity. It will recipro- 
cally, then, enlarge and enrich opportunities for the exercise 
of your prime and peculiar quality, — Initiative. Your first, 
second and third mates are Imagination, Will and Desire. 
They can work wonders in securing compliance, in enlisting 
obedient and intelligent effort from the lesser members of 
your crew. Your petty officers are your emotions, passions, — 
and like most petty officers, are more or less inclined to silent 
conflict one against the other. Correct them by empowering 
your "mates" and "vice-captain." And your flunkeys and 
laborers are your habits, habits, habits; — all mentallv created 
by yourself — the act of creation always some attitude or 



PSYCHOLOGY — Personal and Essential 61 

thought consciously entertained — the growth of the habit not 
seen, — but subconscious. 

Again, it is as tho' the mind — objective and subconscious, 
resembled a factory. To derive a picture that would instruct 
us truly, we should probably have to outline it about as 
follows : 

The executive or managing office is the objective phase of 
mind, or that phase with which you commonly identify your- 
self. Its functions are concerned with the policies, motives and 
objects of the concern; the executive does not do the detail 
work. Its functions are inclusive of such as observation, criti- 
cism, comparison, analysis, aggression, defense — of all that 
goes to make up the meaning in the word "Initiative." The 
duties of you, the objective phase, just like the duties of the 
managerial staff in a commercial institution, consist of buying 
and selling. The institution buys raw material; you as the 
manager of the institution of personality, do the same thing as 
"buying" when you "lay in" the raw material of ideas. Re- 
membering the law of selection, as presented in a past chapter, 
you can judge as to the quality of your current "selections," 
and begin even now to think over methods of improvement. 
In both operations, mechanical or mental, the "raw materials" 
will be worked over into things to use and things to sell. Out 
of the entire operation that consists of "buying," then "work- 
ing over," and then of "selling," the profit is gold with the 
commercial institution, — the profit is poise, wisdom, and power 
with the institution of personality. Your personal influence, 
your self-expression, is what you are selling. If your attitude 
toward life is one of repression or depression, your "sales- 
product" of personal influence will not be desirable. The man- 
ager must learn how to control the actions of his employees, or 
sabotage may be practiced on him. 

Whenever depressing and repressing captains of industry 
get the reins of commerce into their hands, we have abor- 
tive strikes and financial panics. Control does not mean un- 
reasoning "bossing" and tyranny. It means acting in accord- 
ance with our best thinking and understanding, and then not 
being too infernally hide-bound that the present standard is 
the final and ultimate law. As we have arrived at our present 
status by "knocking out" old convictions, so can we arrive at 



62 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 

still better things by clutching and clinging to our present 
standards just a little more loosely. The personality must 
learn to employ only constructive emotions and attitudes, and 
treasure knowledge of fact and law above all things. The 
biggest and most successful manufactories in the world are 
those having well equipped legal (as well as scientific research) 
departments. The attitudes engendered or "born" in you 
while sympathetically perusing such chapters as these are the 
best kind of "help" to take into your employ. 

Now the managers of commercial institutions must know 
their raw material, must know their machinery, must know 
their superintendents and laborers. They must consult their 
own likes and dislikes less and less, otherwise they never will 
be able to judge values accurately. To know their raw mate- 
rial means that they have trained their observation, discrimi- 
nation, and are not easily beguiled by flattery. They must 
scout around, which serves two purposes; the first is that it 
saves them from being immersed too long in their own pre- 
delictions about things, and the second is that by scouting 
around they can check up their ideas of excellence in raw 
material and finished products by observing what others are 
handling in both departments of similar industries. Thus, if 
we stretch the word "observation" to include much more than 
given it in a careless acceptance, — it is thru observation they 
have learned values. They must know their machinery; then 
in event a reasonable improvement suggests itself, they will not 
be so sentimentally attached to the old ones. They must know 
their superintendents and laborers, in order to imbue these 
subordinates with a loyal will to exert themselves for "the 
good of the house." The more and better an executive does 
all these things, the better and more are the products of his 
factory. 

Your duties or functions, objectively (as a "personality") 
are just like that. Your observations must carry the faculty 
of an ever-improving discrimination right with it, so that your 
tendency to exaggerate or to minimize events and ideas will 
grow less. If you exaggerate, you pay too much for your 
"raw" material. If you minimize, you cheat yourself, — for 
someone else will take the idea for what it is worth, and make 
a profit out of it. Like with the executives of a manufacturing 



PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 63 

plant, you are to exercise initiative; you must scout around as 
they do, to get away from your habit of viewing things thru 
the spectacles of your own likes and dislikes, to compete ably, 
and to profit by comparisons of ideas held by associates and 
competitors. For we are all in the business of living. With 
this brief survey, we will leave the objective, or waking per- 
sonality phase of mind, to return for a review, it may be, later. 

The Subconscious 

Now we come to the factory proper. We have left the 
objective phase of mind, or the executive offices. We are on 
the "subconscious" side of the partition. It covers infinitely 
more space — but like in any factory the atmosphere outside 
of the managing office is DEDUCTIVE, whereas the atmosphere 
in the executive office of the successful factory is redolent 
always of INITIATIVE, and of the INDUCTIVE processes of mind. 
Now, then, in the deductive or subconscious vistas, we will 
fancy that there stretches before us a panorama of machinery, 
of workers, — the atmosphere itself vibrant with activity. But 
there is always and at all times a waiting attitude about those 
workers, superintendents they may be, whose working stations 
in the subconscious phase of this factory are nearest the execu- 
tive office. They are nearest the boss, and the secret of their 
expectant or waiting attitude is not difficult to fathom. They 
are awaiting always to hear the wishes, the new orders, from 
the "boss." The boss is you. We may at times have to 
stretch the imagination ever so little to learn from this picture, 
but that, too, is the best kind of mental exercise. Look well, 
and in the interest of becoming a more able executive, learn 
about the working force of your "factory." 

First as to machinery; you have two main divisions, as 
already seen — the physical cells, tissues, nerves, organs — con- 
stitute one of these main divisions; — the psychic, or the pas- 
sions, feeling and emotions are the second, and by far the most 
important division. 

The psychic machinery is the most important because the 
physical is merely its outward "ex-pr ess-ion" — that is to say, 
what has been oppressed. 

The important machinery is made up of your fundamental 
attitudes toward life; of your deepest convictions. It is psychic 
machinery. It is not visible. 



64 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 

The dynamos or sources of power for that machinery are 
your strong passions plus the constant currents of emotion and 
feeling. 

f The directing lever is the Will. 

A capable manager discards an inadequate machine, with- 
out sentiment, and replaces it with a new one. 

It may be more difficult, but it is a necessary psychological 
achievement so to discard and replace old or inadequate con- 
viction-attitudes toward life. Only rarely progressive persons 
really care to do what the wise manager does. The person 
usually wants to hug his conviction to himself forever. He 
grows sentimental about it, tho' it may be spoiling, not only his 
mental efficiency, but his health as well. 

/ A deep conviction, a tightly held mental concept, an atti- 
tude toward life, — these are just as much machines as is a 
lathe or a loom. 'They will work out the raw material of 
ideas according to the innate pattern of the conviction or atti- 
tude. When the replacement of a self-limiting conviction is 
heroically done, then the dynamos of passion, emotion and 
feeling, of thought, and even the directing lever of Will, all- 
work: more smoothly and effectively. 

The old "common laborers" presiding over this machin- 
ery are your mental habits, more mental habits, — thousands of 
mental habits. 

The new laborers, continually trooping in, are your 
thoughts, thoughts, and more thoughts. 

The Habits are the old employees, always teaching the 
thoughts, which are the more recent ones, how to work. 

It must be a strong thought to resist the influence of 
merely adding to the volume of your habits. Thinking "after 
a fashion" has no chance. It will succumb to the tuition of the 
"old-timer" — who is already a habit, and in a short time will 
be but another habit or reinforcement to an old one. 

Mental habits are much more numerous, subtle and pow- 
erful than those physically observable. Well has the auto- 
matic or subconscious mind been termed a "synthesis of 
habits." 

So far, this has been but a view of the "floor plan" of the 
conscious and subconscious phases of mind. What all resides 



PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 65 

in the subconscious part of the factory no sane investigator yet 
dares say in full. 

Knowledge 

We do know that it is a living — joyfully feeling, and 
painfully suffering REGISTRY of all your experiences and your 
thoughts regarding them. We do know that it is "self-aware" 
in that sense, of such bad suggestions as are at the bottom of 
outward hysteria, incapacity, and often of physical disease. 
Esculapius and Hippocrates proved that anciently; Freud 
is proving it again, — modernly. 

Suspicion 

We suspect it has direct connection with a real tho' in- 
visible plane of sub-human, extra-normal, and at times even 
super-normal intelligence, energy and power. Ennemoser 
enumerates scores of attested cases wherein the physical bodies 
of recluses, hysteriacs, monks, nuns, etc., were floated thru the 
air, often in the direction willed by the person so in the grip 
of his "subconscious." The literature of psychical research 
teems with instances describing unaccountable manifestations 
of just as startling a nature. Some students go so far as to 
speculate that the Stonehenge monoliths and the Egyptian 
pyramids were erected under the supervision of people who 
knew how to direct such occult powers ; that the transportation 
and placement of these gigantic blocks of stone was not accom- 
plished by purely physical means. 

Investigation 

In the main, up to this time, it is thru hypnotism, or thru 
so-called trance, ensuing upon temporary paralysis of the ob- 
jective functions, that systematic research and collection of 
data has been possible. This has been especially true of the 
more startling phenomena, such as levitation, clairvoyance, 
prophecy, quick and lucid diagnosis of obscure maladies, often 
with prescriptions, the applications of which result in almost 
"miraculous" cures, etc. 

But the desirability of hypnotism is much in question. 
Danger, some comprehended, some not yet understood, seems 
to accompany the practice. Personally, I cannot see why an 
intelligent person, who has studiously acquired all the infor- 
mation available on the subject, should not practice hypnotism 



66 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 

— if for no other purpose than to add more illumination to 
that conjectural field. If there are unknown dangers, the 
sooner we know them the better. We cannot remove a danger 
until we know what it is. 

The fact is that whether we believe or disbelieve, we are 
nevertheless practicing hypnotism upon ourselves and upon 
others, unconsciously. For instance, a person who enforces 
upon you a dogma that hypnotism is of the devil, has prac- 
ticed hypnotism upon you. The perfection of his experiment 
is determined by the amount of rigor you manifest in later 
avoiding the topic. 

Hypnotism, thinned out, to be sure, but still hypnotism, 
is so universal and penetrating inherency of mental action that 
no more ridiculous thing has ever been perpetrated than to 
pass laws against it. We might as well pass laws against 
seeing grass as green; we might as well try to divorce the 
alphabet from written language. 

Ignorance, of course, is penalized throughout Nature. 
The ignoramus who practices or submits to a deliberated and 
specific act of hypnotism may be doing no more than to accel- 
erate the infliction upon himself of the penalties of ignorance. 
Those consequences of ignorance otherwise could have come 
upon him "thinned out," — and he might normally stand them 
better. 

It might be but a weird and insane speculation to guess 
that the intelligent man would probably accelerate the rewards 
of his intelligence in the same way. Before Freud perfected 
his later and valuable theories in regard to the psychology of 
sex, he had much experience in the French hospitals where 
hypnotism is deliberately and systematically used. 

If your intelligence, courage and aspiration are genuine, 
I do not believe that hypnotism could mar you. If you are 
selfish and rabbit-hearted, undoubtedly it would in some sense 
kill you. At least I hope it would. I do not know but that it 
might be a good test for many to find out once and for all if 
the intelligence and other high qualities of which they are so 
proud are real, or merely mislabeled conceit, prejudice or 
conviction. 



PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 67 

Another Thing About the "Factory" 

It has been proven that telepathy is a function of the sub- 
conscious mind, tho' it may not be readily and cheaply avail- 
able to prejudiced investigators. The existence of this faculty 
can teach us one thing; we harm ourselves if we do not con- 
sider it. It is this : To receive messages sent mentally by an- 
other human being is no more wonderful than the constant 
telepathic interchange going on in one's own psychic and phys- 
ical constitution. We must not forget that the executive in the 
office of personality is (or rather, you are) subject to the play 
of telepathic and even hypnotic influence of the laborers in the 
deeper recesses of the "factory," who strive and yearn to have 
the executive conform more to their collective atmosphere of 
established habit. They wish to empower themselves — to 
make it easier for themselves, always. All this must be intelli- 
gently resisted by a counterplay of telepathic or mesmeric will 
upon them from your station in the directing office, — with a 
comprehensive but firm and persistent assertion of your ideals 
and purposes. The manager of a good institution contrives 
in a thousand ways to bring to the minds of all employees his 
insistence that in every way possible they conform to the main 
policies of his plant. 

Another View of "Vital Energy" 

In tests conducted by expert investigators, it has been 
determined that to a person in the subconscious state of mind, 
the vital energy and other principles of the human constitution 
become visible as an aura, which appears as a somewhat lumi- 
nous, oval cloud about the physical body. It is claimed by such 
clairvoyants that persons in good health and with tranquil 
minds possess auras that are clear, and that with persons who 
have acquired a high degree of knowledge or of physic power, 
the aura is not only clear, but brilliantly luminous. It is also 
claimed that the play of the person's emotions, thoughts and 
feelings can be seen as great flashes of color, bright, stimulat- 
ing and attractive, or, on the other hand, livid, depressive, and 
repulsive, — according to the character of the feelings or 
thoughts. 

To prove that this aura is not an hallucination, Emile 
Boirac, a French investigator, and others, show that it 
can be injured in certain non-physical ways, and that subse- 



68 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 

quently the injury will appear "miraculously" upon the corre- 
sponding portion of the physical body. 

Mediums, so-called, have often furnished good material 
for such investigations, tho' with few exceptions, they as well 
as their "guides" seem to lack sufficient sense to give a rational 
or even coherent explanation of the phenomena. 

A great deal has been written on the subject of auras by 
men and women whose plain desire it is that students should 
infer they (the writers) are "Masters" or "Adepts." Briefly, 
it is their students' belief that Adepts, Masters, and "great 
souls" exist, who have already acquired all knowledge in re- 
gard to human evolution; that they have already applied all 
such knowledge, and are therefore far in advance even of our 
greatest scientists. The beliefs of such students are stimulat- 
ing, but should be classed as beliefs. If not entirely foolish, 
such students would readily see they can never verify the ex- 
istence of a "Master," unless they themselves already were 
masters — which brings them back to the point from which they 
started. 

It is wise always to distinguish between belief and knowl- 
edge. It is good to have a belief and a faith; but it is also 
good to refrain from calling that possession "knowledge," — 
as it is good to refrain from all lies. In a treatise on psychol- 
ogy, it is to be expected that whenever belief is mistaken for 
investigation and knowledge of fact, there the mistake will be 
pointed out. 

Application 

Telepathy, clairvoyance and clairaudience, of course, are 
not limited to investigating other people's auras. Telepathy, 
clairvoyance, etc., quite likely are the inner senses, which in 
this stage of human progress, and probably for the next mil- 
lion years or so, are to go thru the process of being awakened. 
We spoke of the only dogma that psychology cares to enforce : 
that Man is a psychic being inhabiting a physical machine. 

It is important if the vital body or aura can be damaged 
by others, especially if that damage later reproduces itself in 
or on the physical body. But it becomes infinitely more im- 
portant, then, that by my attitudes and moods I myself impair 
or distress that vital body. I begin then to realize that it is 
the connecting link between myself — the power of perception 



PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 69 

and initiative, — and my "expression" or physical machine. I 
begin to comprehend, then, that if I can impair the vital body 
and later experience the impairment physically, then I can also 
vitalize it, strengthen it, make it more brilliant, and likewise 
get the beneficent physical reactions. If I am mystically in- 
clined, I begin to view that aura as an indication of a body 
much more "real" and eternal, than this other function, the 
"out-pressed" physical body. 

Dr. Crawford is proving that the matter of the vital 
body, manipulated to resemble a rope or semi-rigid water 
hose, is the invisible instrument used in instances of telekinesis 
or levitation of heavy objects apparently without "physical" 
contact. A curious instance occurs to mind as I write, and I 
hope it may have some bearing as a citation. A young lady, 
and I understand in a remote way related to me, on a rainy 
Autumn evening some years ago found herself alone in the 
kitchen possessed with a raging tooth-ache combined with neu- 
ralgia. She had been helping the cook put up preserves, an 
innocent and noble occupation, by the way, — and near her 
stood one of those tall, two-bushel baskets common in our 
Eastern states. In the bottom of the basket there remained a 
layer of rather large tomatoes. The cook, and it seems also 
the other members of the household, had all gone out for the 
evening. The neuralgic attack came on severely and suddenly; 
to compose herself the girl sat down on a corner of the table. 
She held her hands to her face as one sometimes does in pain. 
Automatically she was staring into the tall basket, as she now 
thinks of it, but at the time probably did not know at what she 
was staring. Just at the instant when the neuralgia gave her 
an exceptionally diabolical throb, one of the biggest and 
heaviest of the tomatoes jumped fully four feet into the air 
toward her face, did not quite reach her, and then fell on the 
floor and rolled to the other end of the kitchen. I am not sure 
that the incident is correctly reported in detail; but I am as sure 
that essentially it is the statement of a fact as I am that the 
girl in question does not lie. She is a whole-souled and rather 
retiring woman today, with a family of her own, and no in- 
terest whatever in cults or isms that make specialties of the 
weird. What puzzles her is that altho' the neuralgia had. been 
attacking her off and on all that Fall, after that tomato 



70 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 

jumped, she did not have any neuralgia — not from that instant 
to the present day. Yet if the mediums under investigation 
by Crawford produce frr lV i - \ : i?A todies "ropes" that can 
be detected by the crudest clairvoyance and even by physical 
tests, then I cannot see why the unusual pain may not have 
made the girl mediumistic for a second, with just that kind of 
mediumship. In other words, the subconscious did a little 
telekinesis and self-healing in one and the same instant. 

A Generalization 

The building of the embodiments, psychic and physical, 
is a function of the subconscious mind. The character of the 
embodiments is determined by the predominating impressions 
contained in the subconscious mind. 

This is but one function or power of the subconscious 
among many others. 

There are many ways in which intuitively we prove our 
faith in the resources of the subconscious, — tho' objectively 
we may refuse to acknowledge it. Among these many ways, 
there is, for instance, the practice widespread as the human 
race itself, harmless and often successful, of "sleeping over" 
a problem. The occasional successful results serve to show 
that in the archives of that "factory" of the subconscious, 
there are accumulations of information not ordinarily avail- 
able in the objective state. Inspirations of poetry, music, art, 
philosophy, no less than occasional solutions of technical prob- 
lems, are on record as having been received in that way. We 
have the testimony of Coleridge insofar as poetry is concerned. 
Beethoven has the same to say with regard to the method by 
which his genius instructed him. Socrates seems to have been 
so sensitive that the voice or instruction of his genius or 
"daemon" (apparently a "personification" of his segregated 
best subconscious accumulations) — according to his own testi- 
mony, was not lost to him even in the more active hours of the 
day. 

Self-Diagnosis 

This searchlight ability of the subconscious can be di- 
rected. The historical founders of medicine, namely, Hip- 
pocrates and Esculapius, had their patients sleep at the foot of 
some statue representing the patient's own favorite divinity. 



PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 71 

They directed that searchlight cognizance back upon the con- 
dition of the patient himself. The temple atmosphere, and 
the sacerdotal features were all calculated to enlist the faith 
of the sick ones, and thereby impress the subconscious mind. 
It was during sleep that priests who were versed in what mis- 
takenly we fancy to be a strictly modern practice (namely, 
hypnotism) would induce in the sleeper the somnambulistic 
or "lucid" state. The subconscious thus induced to explore 
its own recesses, the patient would murmur to the attendant 
not only a diagnosis of his ailment (probably a la psychoan- 
alysis), but often would add to that information a prescrip- 
tion intended to cure it — or a prognosis of the malady that 
invariably "worked out." 

I was speaking only a few days ago to a prospector. He 
has no education. He has by no means the wide, cheap view 
and the tiny faith that often goes with literary folks, and with 
folks who shop around among all the cults and isms for what 
they can "get" out of them. He had read one rather authentic 
book on the power of the mind, and it had taken him six 
months to do it. He assumed in his naive way that if it took 
him that long to read it, naturally it must have taken the 
learned man who wrote it many arduous years at hard labor. 
Then if it took that long, it surely must be true, and he would 
apply it. One of his legs troubled him, both with rheu- 
matism and with varicose veins. He concentrated from noon 
until it was time to retire, that during the night, subconsciously, 
he would remove the ailment from that leg. What was his 
surprise to note that as soon as he laid his head on the pillow, 
he could not open his eyes, and yet he had done less work that 
day than on any previous day which he could remember. At 
any rate, falling asleep, he dreamed that a doctor came into 
the cabin. He ordered the prospector to bring him a basin of 
water. Then he opened his valise, took out some surgical 
tools, — did a few things to the body (note: it is the prospec- 
tor's own body which he is viewing in the dream), worked on 
the offending leg some fifteen or twenty minutes, bandaged it 
and departed. The prospector woke up in the morning with a 
vivid recollection of the dream. He jumped out of bed. The 
rheumatism was gone. He looked for the bandages, and there 
were none. He felt for the varicose veins; they were still 



72 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 

somewhat bunched, but not so badly as on the preceding day. 
But his joy at the departure of the rheumatism was so great, 
so filled his mind that he forgot all about the veins. Six 
weeks after the occurrence he went to be examined by a physi- 
cian, merely to satisfy me. Of varicose veins — the physician's 
report had it, "No trace." 

Some people are unable to understand why others should 
have predominant mental impressions different from their own. 
Some would say that because this miner in his dream visualized 
a physician who used material means, he was, so to say, "on 
the wrong track;" that he "should have been more spiritual. I 
may be a poor hand at metaphysics, but yet it is my opinion 
that a spiritual power has never yet been invoked for physical 
ends, and never will be. The power used is a rather strong 
psychic effluvium, quite physical in many of its characteristics, 
tho' invisible. But to our dreams or trance perceptions, this 
effluvium in action dramatizes according to our deepest con- 
victions about healing. The good ignorant christian, under 
the same circumstances, undoubtedly would "see Jesus," or 
the virgin Mary, ministering in the same goodly office; the 
Christian Scientist would see Mary Baker Eddy, the Theo- 
sophist might be honored by a visit from Madame Blavatsky; 
and if we could fancy some backwoods farmer's wife with a 
sublime and unsullied faith in patent medicine advertisements, 
then the healing of that kind of dear lady might dramatize in 
her dream a visit from Lydia E. Pinkham. When we quote 
the "according to your faith" passage from the bible, let us 
look carefully into the word "according." It is a hint, which, 
when amplified, explains more of subconscious law than we can 
ever rationally hope to put between the covers of an 
encyclopaedia. 

There are many things not yet understood even about the 
symptoms and faint indications of man's complete nature. All 
that we have seen so far, currently as well as throughout the 
pages of recorded history, are but traces and hints. Psychol- 
ogy does but humbly attempt to rationalize and put into a 
helpful system the results of glimpses so far gained to the end 
that they may not be crassly forgotten. It is a mistake, con- 
sidering the fact that our knowledge is incomplete, to dog- 
matize and to label, — for instance, in a case such as that of 



PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 73 

Joan of Arc. Here is a simple, untutored, unlettered, inex- 
perienced country girl. She conducts an effective and complex 
military activity. She confounds the opposition of a soldiery 
who are led by tacticians and generals efficiently equipped with 
the knowledge of warfare which obviously she lacks. She 
makes no mistakes save when accepting the advice of some 
friendly general, marshal or other war expert. Later she is 
confronted by the crafty beasts who are to murder her. To 
make that action safer for themselves, from her own replies 
in that "court," they strive to find material with which to rouse 
antagonisms among her pious admirers. The latter at the 
time are split in allegiance between two claimants of the 
papacy, both sides vociferating that there is only one. It is a 
grand opportunity to have Joan entrap herself by replying to 
an apparently guileless question as to which pope she prefers. 
And into the teeth of her abysmal torturers she hurls the his- 
toric counter question, mildly spoken: "Are there then two 
popes?"— by which she places her inquisitors in precisely the 
position they had wished her to occupy / Whence came this 
wisdom, this ability? What do the resources of the subcon- 
scious mind not encompass? If she was the tool of angels, or 
of occult adepts, or of the spirits who had once been incarnate 
as statesmen or rulers of France, can the mind of any person 
be shaped into the same sort of instrument? If so, what are 
the conditions? Was she herself perchance the reincarnation 
of some former warrior? Here is a well-attested "miracle," 
covering not moments, but many months, in consummation. It 
was not a momentary occurrence, leaving observers confused 
as to what really did happen. It is a good axiom that can be 
turned and applied both ways. So if it is true that things 
happen because we thought them into happening, so also is it 
true that things happen in order that we should think about 
them. To canonize Joan is not doing that. It may be a good 
thing to sanctify her, but that in no wise tells us the how and 
why of the mystery surrounding her life and actions. It is a 
good thing to bake a cake; but if I want to find the location of 
Chicago on a map, no matter how many cakes I bake, I will 
not find Chicago. I'll have to look at a map. 

Now we are not in the position of having "invented" 
psychology, or of having been inspired with the "ultimate 



74 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 

truth" in regard to it. Psychology is the only map at which 
we may look to find things as they are, but, frankly, the con- 
sensus of knowledge of pschology so far accumulated is far 
from complete. We have, as already said, but traces, indica- 
tions and hints. But they are unmistakable traces and hints. 
Wherever we find enforced dogma of revealed and "ultimate" 
truths, there, curious as it may seem, we may look for an 
abortion of man's evolutionary endeavors. Why? Because 
in the racial sense dogmas serve the same way with the com- 
munity subconscious mind that the personal deep convictions 
and attitudes toward life serve the individual. That at least 
is a law worthy of incorporation in the psychological hand- 
book. Then and thereafter, the application of the other things 
recommended as helpful will not be twisted from their purpose 
by an underlying and unrecognized danger. 

On the basis of accumulated facts, it is the conclusion of 
psychology that within the precincts of that subconscious mind 
of yours there exist detailed, complete knowledge, genius and 
power. Metaphysics would say it is your apportionment, as 
seen in foregoing illustrations, of universal intelligence and 
power, — of omniscience and omnipotence, if you will. And it 
is subordinate to you. It obeys every command of yours to 
the extent that your commands are reinforced by the deepest 
convictions of your character. It obeys still more promptly 
and effectively when such commands are "in tune" with its 
laws. Its laws, because it is an apportionment of universal 
mind, are universal laws, not the personal laws of your likes 
and dislikes; nor are they the laws of your convictions, even if 
you should have made a religion out of your convictions. The 
first feature in the understanding of that universal law is now 
covered. How many saw it? It is this: Objective action is 
Initiative; Subconscious or Subjective action is Deductive. 

Ability, from the meanest to superlative, is subconscious. 
The expert linotyper sets the printed words you are reading 
now, mostly thru "force of habit;" his initiative or will are 
little concerned in the process, or not at all. You will to walk 
to town, or across the room, and again, your habit walks or 
transports you there. It may be that at some time you, as 
mere "power to perceive," desired embodiment, as now you 
desire to cross the room, — and were embodied because the 



PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 75 

subconscious took your desire then as a command to embody 
as now it takes your command to walk. It may be that always 
that "power to perceive," which is the most essential you, has 
been embodied, in psychic or spiritual bodies, or even in phys- 
ical ones, and that the progressive embodiments represent no 
more than a re-awakening of the subconscious "habit" to 
embody, — always in line with the essence of former convic- 
tions, unexpended ambitions and desires. Once in a while one 
finds a child who has more than the usual power of memory. 1 
have asked three or four such tots how they felt when first 
learning to walk. One described it as rather a fearful new 
adventure. The others believed they had always walked, but 
somehow had forgotten, and were now re-learning. I've con- 
versed with a musical genius, who said that altho' he was not 
brought into touch with music until his 15th year, yet unmis- 
takably he knew he was resuming something he'd previously 
acquired thru study, drill, and sacrifice of other pleasures. 
Many people feel the same way when suddenly confronted with 
this very line of thought, tho' for the former section of the 
current "life" they had never heard of it. 

It would seem that every detail of the various pinnacles 
of human perfectability are already resident in the subcon- 
scious mind. The ability to tap cosmic sources of intelligence 
and knowledge actually seems to reside there. It builds the 
body in the first place, then maintains it to the extent that you 
do not throttle its activity with home-brewed faiths, dogmas, 
convictions and selfish emotions. It seems that the things so 
far discussed, such as health, buoyancy, the ability to succeed 
financially or socially, are but the kindergarten toys in the less 
important storerooms and workrooms of that "subconscious" 
factory. Yet at our present stage of evolution health and suc- 
cess are important. We cannot do our work, we cannot claim 
we are doing our best, if we have not enlisted subconscious 
cooperation to the extent of decent physical maintenance. 
Health and Success are legitimate standards at the present 
time; we must learn to master them; we work and live to a 
great extent for them and with them. When we have mas- 
tered them, we will see them to have been minor considerations 
after all. We will see, then, that by mastery of them thru expe- 
rience in them, we but intended to teach ourselves a capacity 



76 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 

for issues, powers (now occult) and activities that now are 
undreamed — that now would seem superhuman. But we can- 
not expect to solve problems in higher mathematics while we 
still cut each other's throats, or destroy each other's characters 
while disagreeing that two and two make four. Even telep- 
athy, for instance, now established beyond peradventure of 
doubt, as a common possibility of the subconscious, were it 
brought universally into play as an active faculty, would make 
hell, where now we fortunately have but the ante-room of 
hell — in regard to industry and commerce. The stronger 
would use it to the impoverishment of the weak, as they do now 
with every other tool. Telepathy is akin to mind-reading. 
If I can receive thought messages sent to me intentionally, it 
will require but a slight extension of the power to enable me to 
take forcibly thoughts, messages and private secrets, not in- 
tended for me. That would give me an unsportsmanlike ad- 
vantage over the rest of mankind. As long as we gouge each 
other with the tools we have, we would act in just as unsports- 
manlike fashion with more perfect or more powerful tools. 
To eliminate danger, we see now how necessary it is that an 
attitude toward life, constructive, healthful and helpful, be in- 
stalled as the main machine in the subconscious mind, before 
sleeping abilities are awakened. 

t^* t£* fc?* 

Every ability that has ever been manifested in the world is 
either active in you, asleep in you, or dreaming in you. 

Every evil that has ever been thought or practiced is either 
active in you, asleep in you, or dreaming in you. 

Shakespeare, Beethoven, Napoleon, Edison, Burbank, Christ, 
Buddha, Manu, Magicians, Sorcerers, Sibyls and Prophets, — are 
either active, asleep or dreaming in you. 

Psychology will not put to sleep those qualities which damn 
you by their actions if they ARE awakened. 

Psychology will not awaken those qualities which you fancy 
you would desire. 

Your COMPREHENSION of psychology, plus your appli- 
cation of what you comprehend, WILL "bind or loose" any or all 
of them, ACCORDING to your faith and character. 



Lesson V. 
REACHING THE INNER MIND 

THE topic of the Subconscious Mind is, of course, inde- 
pendent of any limits which we could prescribe. We can 
turn our attention to such angles of vision as will most 
efficiently give us a working grasp of the indications and hints 
which psychology has accumulated. To arrive at such a "work- 
ing grasp" it is necessary to devise if possible certain working 
formulas, the intelligent use of which may be expected to bring 
about definite, dependable and desirable results. A chemical 
formula means nothing to one not acquainted with the rudi- 
ments of chemistry. Likewise, with the formulas herein to be 
given, — their use will result in nothing, or in worse than noth- 
ing, if what has foregone is treated as of no importance. The 
best artisans use their tools in a manner so efficient as to excite 
the wonder and admiration of the beholder. That is because 
the best artisans know their tools; they could construct new 
and better tools if the ones they have were to break. So it is 
with the laws of mind; one must see their necessity, their im- 
portance, their construction; one must understand their why 
and how before they will justify the complete dependability 
which the advanced student places upon them. 

We saw that the "big" thing which animates the subcon- 
scious mind is the predominant mental impression which 
reigns there. We have not only one such predominant im- 
pression, but many. In regard to every cardinal aspect or 
feature of life, you have some sort of conviction, or predomi- 
nant impression. You will accept things out of that particular 
channel or aspect of life, only according to some conviction of 
your character. It does not matter in the least whether you 
admit to yourself or others that your character has such secret 
controllers and animators; admission and inadmission of that 
sort is part of your present surface thinking, which in the course 
of time may modify your fundamental character if persisted in. 

77 



78 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 

Is there a "short cut" way of changing the undesirable 
predominant subconscious impressions? Inferring from sud- 
den changes in character; sudden mental degenerations and just 
as sudden and seeming miraculous regenerations, "conver- 
sions," and reforms; inferring from instantaneous healings of 
mental and physical diseases and malformations, — psychology 
says there undoubtedly is a short cut. 

Tho' we must with broad tolerance view the claims of 
persons healed, that some particular doctrine or religious de- 
nomination possesses the last word in explanation of how it 
happened, yet psychology says there is a similarity in procedure 
which goes before each and every instantaneous and genuine 
"conversion" or physical cure. If we will glue our observation, 
our powers of analysis and of synthesis, to that thread of simi- 
larity, and really know what it is, then says psychology, we will 
know how actually to reach the subconscious mind, and also 
how to substitute constructive fundamental impressions there 
to replace the old and destructive ones. 

How to Build a Formula 

First, then, to learn our "tools;" — the best observations 
so far vouchsafed of those "traces" which denote a miraculous 
subconscious activity, have occurred as a rule during "trance," 
whether induced by hypnotism or otherwise. That means first 
that the objective processes of mind are in such instances in 
abeyance. But it means first that the body, its posture or activ- 
ities in no wise attracted the attention of the mind, — otherwise 
the attention so required will keep the objective operations 
active. We are building our formula for reaching the subcon- 
scious mind by a short cut, and find that the first requisite in 
that formula is 

Physical Relaxation. 

The second feature is not hard to find, whether the at- 
tempt to re-impress the subconscious mind is pursued thru 
hypnotic procedure or otherwise. The sick negro in Hayti has 
done all the reasoning and arguing he is going to do before 
calling in the dreaded practitioner of "voodoo," who, tho 
dreaded, yet has the power of life and of death in his grimy 
fists, — according to the sick one's deepest faith. The weary 
pilgrim to the cave of Our Madonna of the Lourdes is not 
going there to engage in quarrels in exegesis or in differences 



PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 79 

of opinion over canonical authorities. This mental "letting 
go" of everything, most of all, letting go of the mental rivet 
or fixation on the undesired or unworthy condition itself, is of 
equal importance to the physical relaxation. We shall call 
this second ingredient of our formula 

Mental Passivity. 

The more this "letting go" process has been expertly ful- 
filled, the more does the subconscious, then in line with the ob- 
jective mind, photograph as an indelible picture, whatever 
engages the attention at the magical moment. If the objective 
mind has been paralyzed thru hypnotism, then the object itself, 
and not the objective opinion about it, is the impression made. 
When we speak of a sudden burst of inspiration or enthusiasm, 
we commonly say that the person so inspired or enthused "let 
himself go." It means, psychologically, that his objective self 
at such a time was reinforced by the energies and other re- 
sources of the subconscious mind. In a destructive sense, but 
just as truly do we awaken similar energies when we indulge in 
a fit of intense anxiety, anger or fear. It is psychologically 
just as much of a "letting go" as any other. It furnishes what 
one might aptly call a "camera moment." At such a moment 
as that, whatever engages the attention becomes indelibly fixed 
in the subconscious character, there to work out according to 
its type in your personality and hence in your future welfare. 
The ancients called such moments, whether deliberately in- 
duced or accidentally indulged, "mantic frenzy." But here 
is the gist psychologically, here is the valuable thing for which 
the letting go of mental endeavor is necessary — that the atten- 
tion may be fixed on One Thing. The One Thing, with the stu- 
dent practicing along lines suggested by all that has now fore- 
gone, will be the new or efficient predominant mental impres- 
sion, which is to dominate over inadequate old ones. Hence 
the third feature of our formula for reaching and improving 
the impresses of the subconscious mind is 

Fixation of Attention. 

Now it is not necessary to go into brainstorms, or convul- 
sions, or into hysteria, to get fixation of attention. Indeed, 
the more one can make the mind motionless before that condi- 
tion is brought into play, the better and more sane and more 
clear will be the impression; and later the more strong will be 



80 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 

the working out of that impression into actuality. A quiet 
assurance, yet ever so deep, that one is fulfilling a formula 
exact as a mathematical formula is exact, is the best attitude to 
maintain. 

A verse of a few lines occurs to mind. It is quite apro- 
pos at this juncture, as it depicts in one octave the state of mind 
necessary to secure the fixation on an ideal to be attained, even 
if for the time the "ideal" is not so loftily vague as the lines 
would have it. The energies otherwise wasted in the pyro- 
technics of emotional agonies, frenzies, hysterias, etc., so often 
unnecessarily accompanying inner psychological, or even re- 
ligious endeavors, can as well be so restrained and directed as 
to make all the stronger the new order which you are going 
to implant upon the tablets of the subconscious during the 
moment of the fixation. The writer probably had some idea 
of that sort in mind when putting down the lines. The desire 
expressed to rise past "meditation" is worthy of note. It is pos- 
sible that a limited (not the dictionary) meaning is given the 
word. The imbroglio of thought-arguments which arise in 
mind sometimes to confuse the inept concentrator is probably 
meant. 

Then view in peace the high star worlds this night, 

With quiet gaze so rise past meditation 

That dark or petty things of life, thru concentration 

So consecrated clear, must fail to pierce — 

That in frustration 

Must flee all thoughts but one — 

All thoughts but one must, helpless, take to flight. 

Rather tough on the helpless thoughts, — and yet there is 
enough in the lines to constitute a sort of "direction," in apply- 
ing the formula. Probably it would be a little difficult to define 
that self same "direction," and yet, if we tried, it would amount 
to this : So fix the new standard in your mind, for days in 
advance, that during the practice quarter hour or half hour, 
other thoughts will have little chance to activate your mind; 
they will indeed be "helpless." 

If we try to apply this formula with too much vigor, in 
other words, we are likely to overstep the fine line of effective- 
ness. Most powerful effects are brought about spontaneously 
and easily. This can almost be held as a dogma in psycho- 



PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 81 

logical practices. We shall discuss it more fully a little later. 
But in the meantime, remember that in the moment of the 
"fixation, of attention," you have what many psychologists call 
a "psychological moment," during which you are the master 
of a photographing camera, — and the photographs that you 
then take by ear, by eye, by emotion, by any perception, inner 
or outer, will subtly rule you thereafter, — modified only by 
other such photographs already existing and strong enough to 
conflict with the new one. 

The famous "curse of the Hapsburgs" was probably ef- 
fected at least in part thru an accidental employment of the 
psychological factors shown as the three ingredients of our "in- 
fallible formula." The grieved and, it may be, partly insane 
noblewoman when delivering that historic malediction upon 
Francis Joseph, certainly had the latter's undivided, hypnotic, 
or "fixed" attention. While listening to that horrible sequence 
of prophecies, all pictures of horrors and disasters to occur 
in the lives of those he most loved, — we would not imagine him 
as concerned over the ventilation of the room or with anything 
whatever to do with his body. We would not fancy him as 
mentally occupied with a mortgage, or a note, or giving 
his mind to any of those things which usually fritter away 
the average student's best psychological opportunities. If the 
same woman, with the same frenzied energy, had then and 
there in that manner pierced the shell of Francis Joseph's 
objective personality with prophecies of growth and expan- 
sion for his family and empire, — well, we can but wonder. 
On the other hand, it may be, after all, that in her "mantic 
frenzy," she saw clairvoyantly and prophetically into the future 
of the king she felt had needlessly robbed her of her son, 
and in that dramatic manner recited what she saw. Never- 
theless, even that would again show that fixation of atten- 
tion had been brought about in her through that terrific surge 
of emotion or mantic frenzy, and that this moment of fixation 
is, therefore, more replete with "miracle" than carelessly other- 
wise we would have thought. 

I Wish I Knew What to Wish For 

How common an attitude this is ! And yet, in the little 
citation just concluded, we have a clew how the formula may 
be applied to help in this very situation. If within the un- 



82 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 

plumbed depths and heights of consciousness there is a depart- 
ment that knows even the future, then surely there are depart- 
ments that know well what is best for you as personality "to 
do." It is a mistake, however, to assume or to expect that such 
departments of your cosmic being will command you positive- 
ly. If we have made even one item of things psychological 
clear to the student by this time, we hope it has been this : You 
as objective personality are the only fraction in the entire of 
your being, which during the earth life is positive. The voice 
depicting what to do is still and small — passive — negative. 
Each prejudice and whim can easily out "holler" it. Often, 
those not evolved far enough for true endeavor inflate some 
selfish desire ; the next step is wonder at the proportions and 
power of the desire ; still the next step with such is to decide 
that it could not be so vast unless their "soul" or "god" wanted 
them to do or possess the thing desired. Such "rational 
maniacs" spout from platforms in every town and city; nothing 
is so irresistable as mania. But it is not the kind of "advance" 
really needed. Too much semi-insanity and quasi-sanity is 
already among us. 

Let us made a demand on the soul, if we employ the fore- 
going formula, for sanity first. Grow as enthusiastic in 
anticipating a psychological exercise for that object as you 
would in "holding the thought" for a new automobile so fer- 
vently advocated by some of the "prosperity cults." Con- 
tinued for a season, it will enable you to tap a veritable well- 
spring of philosophy and ethics. The influence of that spring, 
welling from within, will cause you to view things mathematical- 
ly and yet sympathetically, instead of in the common emotional 
way, that is either repelled from a thing or condition by dis- 
like, or on the other hand merely gushes and brays in true jack- 
ass fashion over the thing or condition it "likes." 

Sanity established, then and not till then, is the time to 
progress and to act with every tool at one's command. The 
formula and all that went before, which must be imagined as 
concentrated within the formula, is one of the tools now in 
hand. If sane, use that formula; it is a sin of omission not to 
use it. The insane are using it and there are many of them. 
If you lack sanity, use the same formula to get it. It is a crime 
against yourself to use it for any other purpose than that, if 



PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 83 

you are still subject to personal or to racial insanities. Think 
well, then think again. 

A Bit of Psychoanalysis En Passant 

While thinking, also think over this : Automatically 
every feature of that formula you have used since you were one 
second old as measured by an Elgin watch. You could not 
help it. You used it automatically. When your mother told 
you bedside stories, your body was relaxed; your mind was at 
rest; you gave the narrative of adventure, of courage, of dar- 
ing, — or the story of goody-goodiness or wish-washiness, — you 
gave all that your undivided, and often your "fixed" hypnotic 
attention. When some adult stopped you abruptly with a ter- 
rible threat, warning, or "prophecy" in regard to what would 
happen if you "did" this or that, again subconsciously you 
photographed a terribly potent "photograph" right then and 
there. The conversation you overheard, that you had no busi- 
ness to overhear, according to adult standards, photographed 
itself with intensity because then your objective operations, 
bodily and mental, were very, very still. The sight you saw, 
that you were not supposed to see, did likewise; because every 
time you puzzled over it thereafter, it grew very, very strong; 
and because no one explained to you what it all meant, certain 
of your childhood phantasies in regard to that sight, to those 
words, or to other impressions, — these infantile phantasies still 
dominate you. Psychically you still have the 3 or 4-year-old 
in you. 

Subconsciously, no matter if you are 80 years old, you still 
respond, and are drawn into many situations of life because of 
that subconscious search for the mother, the father, or to what- 
ever else represented felicity to the babe. Some of those infan- 
tile phantasies are desirable. Some are undesirable. Some of 
them have become "sublimated" into noble actions. But on 
some of them the incrustations of fear fantasies have kept you 
down, — have kept you out of entire sectors of life and action 
so far. Do you wish to enter such self-inhibited, self-forbidden 
sectors? Then use the formula — for sanity first. We see 
now that precaution is not so unnecessary after all. It is quite 
necessary. It will give you, first of all, power and courage to 
face yourself. It will give you the power to call a spade a 
spade, even if it is an agricultural implement. Of course, when 



84 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 

thus "shaking loose" from undesirable subconscious sources 
of fear and incapacity, certain of our more pleasant illusions 
concerning ourselves also "go" in the process. But the com- 
pensation is this: We find the truth underlying the layer of 
illusions, by far a more vital thing, and to the sane mind, more 
attractive than the most alluring mental postures and poses 
with which theretofore we may have tried to impress our- 
selves and others. 

The Effect of Experience 

Experience may occur to us physically, psychically, or 
mentally. All experiences are stored in the subconscious mind. 
The inner archives are like unto a dictaphone and motion pic- 
ture camera combined. But every genuine experience so stored 
away is cushioned about with living feeling or thought. Noth- 
ing that has ever happened to you is dead merely because you 
have neglected, forgotten, or repudiated it. The living feel- 
ing or thought surrounding each occurrence occupies more 
"space," is more weighty by far than the nucleus of experience 
to which it impinges. It is weighty either with anxiety or with 
expectation. Imagine a glass of very clear jam or jelly; 
imagine that this comestible is made of strawberries. Look 
thru it at the sun. In the wine colored yet translucent sub- 
stance you see innumerable seeds, — yet by volume, if those seeds 
were segregated, you would probably have a half thimbleful 
and the diminution in the volume of jam or jelly would not be 
noticeable. Now imagine that the little solid points of actual 
experience stored in the subconscious are just like that. They 
are numerous, of course, but are entirely surrounded and float 
in our feelings and phantasies in regard to them. Around but 
very few of such points of experience is the surrounding feeling 
in tune with fact. Moreover, the "jell" which we have built 
around each such point, usually disagrees or contradicts another 
kind of phantasy which we have built or wound round a neigh- 
boring point, and so on. The fears and hopes around one 
contradict the fears and hopes around another. 

When it is seen that the waking, every day personality is 
in one sense the "out-working" of the subconscious self, we see 
that the past events and occurrences of any given life are not 
the dominant things controlling that life now. "You" are the 
sum total of the kind of emotional and mental reactions you 



PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 85 

have given events and occurrences. The occurrences them- 
selves do not much matter. Among many psychologists, all 
these reactions, — in fact, anything which then or later is to 
affect the workings of the subconscious mind, goes by the gen- 
eric name of "Suggestion." Understood in that sense, it will 
save many students disappointment; for there are "teachers" 
with limited and inadequate knowledge in these matters, whose 
only idea of a Suggestion is something merely spoken to one's 
self or another in quite a positive or almost vindictive manner. 
Yet, if care and persistence is used to widen and enlarge the 
meaning implied in that word suggestion, then it becomes true 

that SUGGESTION, NOTHING MORE AND NOTHING LESS, IS THE 
ACTIVATOR OF SUBCONSCIOUSNESS. 

If such a suggestion has been built around a memory of a 
painful experience, quite likely it is not in line with fact. You 
have built some kind of phantasy or "white lie" about it. You 
may not have done this as a matter of deliberation. The point 
is, — to the extent that the fantasy-mechanism is there be- 
cause of fearing to face the fact itself, to that extent is it harm- 
ful. Things psychologically done because of fear, in effect are 
as bad as the fear itself. 

The subconscious mind is a faultless recorder of every- 
thing that has transpired throughout the life. We are all fa- 
miliar with instances that illustrate this point. Two or three 
cases are on record, one, if I recall in the book "Man's Uncon- 
scious Conflict," by Wilfrid Lay, Ph.D., of an elderly woman, 
who, in her early 'teens, had been within hearing range (but 
had never objectively listened to) recitations in Hebrew; it is 
a number of decades after this that she is ill, and in delirium 
mystifies those at the bedside with recitations in the strange 
language. The unconscious, or rather the subconscious, there 
showed that it remembers impressions gathered by the percep- 
tions. It remembers these, whether or not they are objectively 
learned in the accepted sense. The recording is done with 
equal impartiality in either case. 

In the years of infancy, certain specific things are so "laid 
in" with a greater amount of feeling than with other things. 
This overweight of emotional concern will accompany impres- 
sions that have anything at all to do with what the infantile 
subconscious carries as its three dominant "urges." Those 



86 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 

dominant urges, which nothing can uproot, are the yearnings 
toward Life, Love and Activity. Love and Sex, even in the 
tiny infant, tho' latent objectively, yet in the subconscious sense, 
constitute the magnet that incites accumulation of observed 
facts. Anything that bears on the "magnet" itself, therefore, 
arouses a volume of energy, for which the infant as yet has no 
means of disposal. Hence such infantile impressions, as it 
were "turn upon themselves" in the form of phantasy and fable- 
building. These inner distortions and fables, later in life, will 
make of the sex life, and consequently of the emotional and 
psychic life, a thing according to their own nature. If the act- 
ing out of those buried impressions is contrary to accepted 
social usages, then in the average individual there will grow 
up the faculty of psychic repression, which may, by its close 
connection (already seen) with the very wellsprings of life, 
impair the person's life and efficiency as a social unit. This, 
then, is the context of that padding and cushioning of feeling 
and of thought, with which we surround in our subconscious- 
ness the bare facts, occurrences and experiences of life. It is a 
condition obtaining with every human being on earth, in greater 
or lesser degree. Its kind and degree is the root to study and 
to comprehend if we wish to know more why the tree shows 
the form of success or failure. 

Yet, taking the broad and thorough meaning which now 
should go with the word "Suggestion" (preceded where the 
"photograph" or impression has been deeply engrafted upon 
the subconscious, by relaxation, passivity, and fixation of atten- 
tion) — we see then that all this psychic operation, where un- 
worthy or undesirable, — has been accomplished through ig- 
norant application of that potent tool of mind. Accidentally, 
some suggestions may be good; they often are. But the pur- 
pose of psychology is to learn how to draw life away from the 
dizzy precipice of uncertainties and accidental benefits. Psy- 
chology recommends the best use of what tools we have. Its 
method of determining a tool is to find out first what we are 
doing automatically and ignorantly, and then to make the same 
process objective and intelligent. Plainly, its purpose is to 
draw that which is hidden out into the sunlight. If auto- 
matically we have been using suggestion and to our own detri- 
ment, then, if we learn to do the same thing consciously, we can 
improve the results heretofore seen. We can learn, by per- 



PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 87 

severance, to do wisely and well what has been done ignorantly 
without our objective knowledge. 

Again, the subconscious, tho' it has worked out sugges- 
tions ignorantly, as just stated, — yet the word would probably 
describe psychologic fact better if we twisted it into "ignor- 
ingly." All that we have ever learned of suggestion, and all 
that we are likely to learn, must be borrowed from observations 
of the subconscious itself. Hence, the subconscious is not ig- 
norant of suggestion. It ignores, however, your aims, your 
ideals, and your best wishes. Its business is solely and com- 
pletely that of working out suggestions implanted upon it. It 
is YOU who must learn how to incorporate your ideals and best 
wishes into that mechanism of Suggestion. <" 

The first thing in learning to do this is to learn how to 
face the condition prevailing in the lower subconscious mind. 
If the situation there prevailing is ignored, it acts as a basement 
foundation that has, by flood or earthquake, been thrown out 
of plumb and into a slant. The entire superstructure of sub- 
conscious and even of objective operations will then be "out of 
kilter;" neuroses and failure will be there, maybe ill health 
physically as well. The first use of the Formula should be 
for Sanity, as we said before, — but for self-analysis as well, 
as we will say now. Not to add to the subconscious clutter, but 
to straighten out what is there, should be the first aim. 

We must put forth effort to become effective and efficient 
human beings before we go about bombastically storming the 
gates of heaven. Willingness is not enough; ability must ac- 
company it. The effectiveness or ineffectiveness of personality 
is gauged and determined by the number and virulence of inner 
"complexes," the nature of which we have but touched upon. 
Any artificially built up — and then ignored — phantasy sur- 
rounding the impress of an undesirable experience, is called a 
complex. This is but an "outline," and the discussion of such 
contents of the subconscious has been by no means complete. 
We have but brushed on the first big task that confronts every 
true student of psychology. Many "teachers" ignore this 
phase; but with such it is of common note, that the students 
derive no more lasting benefit than a chance to worship the 
teacher while that person deigns to stay in any given city. 

As Wilfrid Lay so well points out, — if a mere thought 
can induce a flow of energy and blood to the face and cause 



88 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 

a blush, there is no reason to doubt similar, slower but more 
subtle and powerful physiological effects from more funda- 
mental attitudes of mind. Thus, a young girl rather imper- 
tinently questioned by a mother who could ill-disguise her own 
prurient complexes, becomes deaf. The desire of the girl not 
to hear the mother is the Suggestion in this instance, and the 
deafness is a wish fulfillment. A man who has lost his love for 
his wife, yet unwilling to bring upon her and the family all 
the "shake-up" that divorce would entail, suddenly goes blind. 
Subconsciously, the Suggestion is, "blindness will the most likely 
allow me to live as if she were not with me," again the "ignor- 
ing" way of creating a wish fulfillment. Partial paralysis has 
been known to follow sometimes as the result of a long nursed 
resentment at having to do intimate or menial chores for 
others. In most instances of this kind, merely the Suggestion 
for health would not do at all. All the "holding the thought" 
in the world would only add to the malady, or cover it up with 
a yet deeper incrustation of lies. Almost invariably, the hope 
of cure lies first in intellectualizing the hidden emotion — the 
concealed attitude. It is difficult, because the objective person- 
ality will deny upstandingly the existence of each and all of 
the real causes of the disorder. Often healing, therefore, is 
to be expected as part of a re-education; for otherwise the 
patient continues to feed the causes of his trouble. But all this 
is improved when we begin to see that all attitudes of mind 
are energic, not static. That is to say, mental attitudes act as 
energies, with a semi-intelligence built up as already shown, — 
while at the same time acting as channels or conductors for 
other forms of force and energy. 

Then when this view has been thoroughly established, you 
will see the necessity of work. This enables the energies of- 
body and mind to carry out the ROOT SUGGESTION of the RACE 
— to do something worth while outwardly. The ROOT sug- 
gestion referred to just now, if it could be vocalized, would 
tell us that we must do something to impress material en- 
vironment. We must do something that will make the world 
a little better for those who are younger, and for those not yet 
born. The ROOT suggestion says we dare not feed on our 
own emotions; it says if we pity ourselves, or worry ourselves, 
or are anxious, we will get olenty of things to fear and to be 
anxious about. It says to do something for the bettering of 



PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 89 

material and outward conditions, it is not necessary to indulge 
in rhapsodies about man's glorious future. It says juggle the 
garbage cans at your kitchen door, if this morning the servant 
is indisposed. It says, get a hammer and pin down the loose 
corner of that rug yourself, if husband is busy, or if the carpet 
layers are not available. It says indulge your selfishness less, 
even if you have been prone to disguise that selfishness by at- 
tendance of "uplift" meetings, or by taking it out in the wor- 
ship of some itinerant "psychologist." If you yearn to write 
poetry instead of doing all these things, it makes rejoinder that 
your poetry will then be of better savour. Probably then some- 
one will actually read it, and even enjoy doing so. If you rein- 
force the subconscious and ingrained tendency toward in- 
grainedness by demanding service when you yourself are not 
serving, your attitude toward life then is infantile. Subcon- 
sciously the babe of a few months still dominates you. In soul 
growth you are then still the puling infant. Here then is the 
reason and the rationale behind that oft repeated slogan : When 
feeling sorry for yourself, do something for somebody else 
QUICK. How many "babes" we have among our "great ones." 
Among kings and potentates; among government officials; 
corporation heads and executives ; down to the neurotic social 
leader, who admits incapacity for real life by adopting a con- 
summately artificial pose, — mere infants, bawling and screech- 
ing that the rest of the social family give them for nothing the 
things they want just as the baby "gets" its needs. As the 
babe tyrannizes over the rest of all our ill-regulated families, so 
in the family politic the infant still gets his way, because the 
rest of the family are dunces. 

No one is to blame, except if we take the extreme posi- 
tion that ignorance is blameworthy always. But we see Nature 
prodigally bestowing failure and disease wherever her laws are 
ignored. So whether we blame or refrain from blaming, it is 
at least prudent to learn. Sympathetic learning in itself seems 
practically the complete "fulfilling of the law." Some day it 
will be a slogan of healing, that "In the correct and complete 
diagnosis lies the cure." It will be seen that no more is re- 
quired of any ill than to diagnose it properly, to make it vanish. 
Why? Because the cause of the majority of disorders is pas- 
sional and emotional, below the mind, not admitted to, or 
repudiated by the mind. The mind represents sunlight; the 



90 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 

position of the causes of the disease before diagnosis, is in the 
dark and damp basement, where vile things breed and batten. 
Once the offending cause is hauled out into the germicidal sun- 
light of rational analysis, it loses its effectiveness for evil and 
ill. To maintain the pose that one is too much of a saint to 
harbor such complexes is the most effective defense that the 
disordered phase of the subconscious could have induced you 
to take. It is the same as saying "I prefer to stay sick," and 
that guise acts as a permanent and hypnotic Suggestion to keep 
things in statu quo. 

So, again, the first use of our formula should be for Sanity 
first. There is no man, woman, boy or girl, without a range of 
complexes personal to each. This is said with a view to demon- 
strating that "to be analyzed" by someone claiming the ability 
to do so is quite likely to fail of results unless you yourself are 
already well versed in psychology. I pity the wretches who will 
try to carry out the habit of "shopping around" among folks 
who hang out shingles as "psychoanalysts," as now they do 
among less effective and therefore less dangerous quacks. The 
root suggestion of the race, again says: "Thou shalt not try 
to evade the painful necessity of thinking," and running to an 
"analyst" is often an attempt at just such evasion. Learn also 
to distinguish between thinking, which, to justify the name 
should be analytical and constructive, — -and on the other hand, 
mere brooding and worrying. The latter forms are attacking 
always, and actually twisting and perverting the life energies 
themselves. 

Do consciously and wisely what you have been doing 
habitually and ignorantly. Subconsciously or habitually, — 
always you have been acting according to the law of Sugges- 
tion, or if we wish to paraphrase that, then according to the 
Law of Predominating Mental Impressions. Such impressions 
are made on the subconscious when for a second or for an hour 
you have fulfilled the three conditions enumerated. Whenever 
the pose or activity of your body has not occupied the mind; 
whenever at such a time your mind itself has become passive, 
and then when this physico-mental condition obtained, you 
have also given fixed or undivided attention to something, — 
then that thing, or your emotions concerning it, have become 
indelibly impressed in your subconscious mind as dominators 
of action for the subconscious energies. 



PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 91 

All these conditions may have occurred a thousand times 
today, in situations where you least expected that they would 
happen. I have, on looking back and analyzing, seen where, 
automatically and without volition, the entire formula has been 
in force while I was pursuing a fleeing trolley car. Again 
I've seen it occur of itself with less distraction at a concert; 
at hearing a word that I tried to place and thereby became 
abstracted for a moment; in viewing a sunset. I've heard of it 
occurring this way: A boy mocked his rather irascible and 
stammering grandfather, who was occupied at a carpenter's 
bench at the time. The boy paid no attention to the old gentle- 
man's stuttering warnings that he would be punished if he did 
not desist. The boy, studying over a childish drawing of a 
penciled plan, absent mindedly, or thru force of habit, was 
again aping the grandfather's impeded speech. Out of patience' 
then, and without further warning, the old man dealt the boy a 
light and sudden blow on the back, exclaiming loudly, "You will 
stammer, will you?" And the boy did stammer for months 
thereafter. He had fulfilled the three requirements of the 
formula; the older man, if the story is true (and there is no 
reason why it should not be), had merely furnished the object 
for the camera moment of the fixed attention to photograph. 
Throughout most of life, people submit to doing and 
thinking automatically, according to "habit complexes." It is 
so easy to do things according to habit, which we glorify by 
calling our "nature." This is wrong. It leads to worse than 
nowhere. These habits for the most part were formed un- 
consciously under circumstances which do not now obtain. 
From the standpoint of true progress, there is no mental habit 
adeauate for this day's or this moment's endeavor. Habit 
and stagnation, incompetence — are psychological synonyms. 
Do not throw your present problem down to your habit mind 
for solution. Solve it by thought. See that the kind of thought 
vou use comprehends things as they are, not as the colored 
soectacles of habit would twist them. Solve the new impres- 
sion, the new experience, the new difficulty — by thought, not 
by habit. Suspect yourself if you cannot think it out. En- 
courage yourself if wise clews result from thinking; that means 
you are getting away from the subconscious tendency to stow 
away the kernel of experience in a pickle solution of futile 
phantasies. 



92 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 

That formula given in this chapter is meant to enable you 
to produce at will the "camera moment" which automatically 
is a mechanism in your mental life. If you practice the form- 
ula, you will have many of such camera, or fixation of attention 
moments. You may never notice having one. That does not 
matter, because noticing is an objective function, and the fixa- 
tion moment is an act of the subconscious. Objectively you 
can only furnish the required ingredients of the formula. In 
anticipation of such fixation moments, whenever and wherever 
they may occur, have ready the standing Demand for greater 
and keener powers of conscious thought. Have ready a deep- 
rooted determination to get away from viewing and solving 
things by a play on your own emotions, convictions and ideals 
to the extent that your life shows so far such have been in- 
adequate. 

A Bit of Useless (?) Speculation 

He who dominates the subconscious mind in line with 
reality needs thereafter but to photograph on it what he will. 

The counter-claims of conflicting desires not being there to 
obscure the picture, — the creative forces bent without dissipa- 
tion or deploy to the end of vitalizing the imprint — that and 
nothing more — then a tremendous effect at once is produced on 
physical matter thru its phase of entelechy — the ether. 

Instantaneous healing may be the item pictured, the appor- 
tation of matter thru matter, the miraculous growth of a fruit- 
bearing tree, the magical creation of loaves and fishes, the walk- 
ing on water or in air, the seeing and comprehending of inner, 
psychic and spiritual realms of nature, the making of man a 
magi, adept, or "god." 



^?* (<?* t£fc 



In TRUTH nothing is impossible. 

We are, however, but learning the truth, despite our pious 
claims that we already have it. 

Psychology but hopes to help in this learning, and that is all. 



Lesson VI. 

SUBJECTIVE INSIGHT AND OBJECTIVE 

ACCOMPLISHMENT; or, DREAM 

AND REALITY 

WHEN airplanes were first invented, we read much 
about how the air seems to move in strata or layers. 
Up to an altitude of say, 500 feet, the movement 
of air or wind might be in an easterly direction; then the next 
500 or 1,000 feet would probably be found comparatively 
quiet, without any motion; yet, if the ascent were continued, 
the aeronaut would as likely as not .find that at a still greater 
altitude a veritable gale was blowing in a westerly direction, 
directly opposite to the wind direction of the lowest air-layer. 

Now, the analogy or similarity is beautiful. Psychology 
draws attention again and again to the fact that movements 
or activities of consciousness are also in layers. 

You may be occupied with your normal current activities. 
Yet suddenly, if you stop for a moment, you will note that 
underneath this, another substratum of more or less discon- 
nected thought has been "moving" in you all that time. This 
substratum may not, and as a rule is not, in any apparent way 
connected with the duty of the moment. This undertone of 
thinking is not objective as we see, and yet it is without diffi- 
culty perceived, if one takes the trouble to stop the strictly 
objective operations of mind. Hence it is not strictly sub- 
conscious; or as the later schools of analytical psychology 
would say, it does not out and out belong in the cryptic or 
obscure realms of the "unconscious." 

A Highly Important "Crossroads" of Consciousness 

We will therefore call this middle stratum of thinking, the 
"subjective" phase of mind. It is a sort of dream obligato to 
the solo of objective or initiative activity. To continue the 
musical analogy, — we know that "middle C" is the property 
neither of the base nor of the treble clef; and yet it is the 
property of both. So with the subjective phase of thinking, — 

93 



94 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 

it is neither objective nor subconscious, and yet is a strategic 
something, "belonging" to both. It is the "sitting on the 
fence" phase of mind. It seems lazily to refuse co-operation 
with either the field on one side or the field on the other. If 
we suddenly turn the searchlight of curiosity on him, for a 
few moments, we may observe him, but the light is too much. 
The subjective current of thought then either merges into 
some phase of the objective thought, or disappears into the 
hidden field of the subconscious. As soon as the searchlight 
of attention is withdrawn, he begins slowly to resume his day- 
dream seat on the fence. 

Again this subjective phase is like the middle layer of 
comparatively quiescent air between two active and moving 
strata. In the normal individual, so quiet and unobtrusive 
is its function, that it hardly does to call its activity by the 
name of "thinking." We might call it by that rather obscure 
word "mentation," which means merely an "act of mind," 
without particularizing about the kind of act. 

Its action is easily observed in children. This is especially 
noticeable at such times as when we say of the child that it 
is "absorbed" in playing. The child then is not in its strictly 
objective phase; the environment is ignored except for the 
small fraction of it that can be drawn in appropriately to 
furnish ingredients in the phantasy evoked by the game. The 
child, strictly speaking, is not awake to its surroundings. Yet 
it is not asleep. It is in a state of wakefulness, asleep to a 
(for the time being) repudiated portion of consciousness. 

The position of the subjective phase of consciousness is 
between the waking objective and the sleeping or subcon- 
scious state. Understanding this, many students are able to 
study its activities until drowsiness becomes so insistent that 
it is prudent to resume full wakefulness in order that the 
impressions gained may not be lost to memory. 

In watching the activities of this subjective phase, — and 
they can easily be watched, if one only has the persistence, — 
it seems as tho' the actions there prevalent could never be 
brought under volitional control. The pictures which arise 
in it; the thoughts or shadows of thoughts, the emotions or 
ghosts of emotions, all flit in and out, to and fro, apparently 
with no correlation. Objectively the mind may be occupied 
in solving a problem in arithmetic; in the same instant, by a 



PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 95 

flash of attention, by a flash of withdrawal from that prob- 
lem, — one will see that subjectively one is attending again a 
tea-party or a political discussion that happened in reality ten 
years ago. Objectively the maiden is practicing her piano 
lesson; subjectively, she is brooding over what she should have 
said in the parting by moonlight the other evening. 

Deeper still, in the utterly subconscious mind of mystery 
and magical ability, other activities are being carried on at 
the same time. That deeper phase is not now under discus- 
sion, however. We are concerned only with that middle layer, 
the subjective, the seemingly capricious and elusive plane of 
mentation that only with difficulty can be defined into thought. 

Is the function of this field of consciousness only as impor- 
tant as its conspicuousness, or rather its lack of conspicuous- 
ness? I rather think that by this time we are convinced that 
nothing in the psychic make-up of man can be safely ignored. 
We shall try, therefore, to find what can be known of the sub- 
jective phase, — the middle ground between the two grand 
divisions in consciousness. 

Let us have it this way. We have two adjoining rooms 
connected by a door. Again, we will see in our two rooms 
a faithful representation of the factory simile, drawn in a 
previous chapter. Now imagine that door as a mirror on both 
sides. It is reflecting all the essences of the automatic habit 
complexes, all the primitive, introversional and selfish phases 
of the subconscious on one side, and on the other side it is 
reflecting the precipitations cast upon it by the objective 
thoughts and endeavors of personality. The attention, when 
directed toward that door which we have been calling the sub- 
jective phase of mind, sees both sides of the door at once. 
Hence the fragmentary and contradictory nature of all that 
flits so rapidly and- so capriciously thru our perceptions when 
we watch it. It seems meaningless. J 

Its Function In Dreams 

Yet a door is a door; that is to say, this phase of mind 
has an exceedingly important function. If one could examine 
it with something like a spiritual microscope, undoubtedly in 
its very texture one would find the quintessence of the entire 
being, plus a "censorship" principle that prevents too great 
an uprush from the subconsciousness. In dreams, one would 



96 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 

find that door practically entitized into rather an intelligent 
and very powerful censor. One would find that the representa- 
tions of raw passional desires from the subconscious must dis- 
guise themselves very cleverly indeed in order, as dreams, to 
reach any department where a record might later be made of 
them by the objective phase. One would, on closer examina- 
tion, ascertain that no dream has yet been dreamed without 
such censorship or "retouching" by this censorious door, or 
this door-like censor. And yet, one would also find that like 
with every phase of mind, even its censorship had a "tone" 
entirely in line with the fundamental character of the dreamer. 
Some people have much coarser dreams than others. The 
subconscious content is no "worse" than in any other human 
being. The censor has been trained to a stricter puritanism, 
that is all. This is mentioned merely to provoke profitable 
thought in regard to other departments of character. For 
instance, the refinement and severity of the censorlike activities 
of the subjective phase may be pronounced as to sexual con- 
tents, while in regard to real morality-it may be utterly deficient. 
Unselfishness, willingness and ability to serve, of course, are 
the only real morality. At present that is only an ideal concept 
with humanity, with which the objective activities are endeavor- 
ing to conform. The subconscious, tho' possessed of practically 
infinite resources, is also the residuary of all that the race mind 
and the individual mind has traversed in the process called 
life. It is neither moral nor immoral. It is dominated by 
the greeds, the lusts, the passions of the savage, the psychic 
phases of which items were again epitomized in the personal 
infancy and childhood, no less than it is influenced by your 
aims and efforts of the present day. "Thus," says Isador H. 
Coriat, in his book, "The Meaning of Dreams," "the uncon- 
scious contains not only recent experiences, but likewise impres- 
sions of infantile childhood life, all of which are actively and 
dynamically functioning like conscious processes. The uncon- 
scious is therefore the great repository of our mental life; in 
it are contained thoughts and wishes which may be foreign to 
our personality, to our moral or ethical nature, thoughts which 
we constantly and apparently successfully repress, but which 
inadvertently to our surprise suddenly crop out as symptomatic 
actions, psychoneurotic symptoms, or dreams. All functional 
nervous disturbances, dreams, and slips of the pen or tongue 



PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 97 

are motivated by unconscious mental processes, of which they 
are the symbolic expression. The unconscious (in one sense) 
is a kind of limbo of seemingly forgotten groups of thoughts or 
complexes, which are constanty striving to reach consciousness 
and are just as persistently rejected by the repressive action 
of the censor. But frequently the censor nods and is caught 
unawares, the repressed wish slips through in the form of a 
dream, and we are repeatedly surprised to discover how prim- 
itive, how selfish and savage, may be our unconscious desires." 
And further, "this repression of emotions at the same time 
admits their reality by trying to avoid and negate them. The 
effort of these repressed emotions to find an outlet leads to 
all forms of nervous invalidism such as so-called nervous pros- 
tration and various types of morbid fears. Such individuals 
externally appear cold and austere, apparently emotionless, 
and lacking all essentials of human feeling, yet their dreams 
show various degrees of forbidden desires which only in this 
manner come to expression. Conditions like these teach us 
that we are all emotional volcanoes, and when we pride our- 
selves on having subdued our emotions and on not yielding 
to so-called vulgar feelings and temptations, nevertheless, it 
is certain that, hidden within the depths of our unconscious, 
these repressed desires are as potent and active as though they 
assailed every second of our conscious thinking." 

Its Function in Regard to Ability 

We see here, that under the guise of reflector for the 
flitting shadows of two sides of consciousness, the subjective 
or "middle layer" has one very important function. It is the 
phase in which resides the censor. It stands to reason that 
the individual method of censorship, no less than the innate 
method of phantasy-building formerly discussed, will often 
keep out of the objective chambers such features of ability 
as are closely tied up in mind with one or another suppression. 
Thus, a citation comes to mind of a boy, brilliant in his school 
studies with one exception, namely the study of mathematics. 
He dreads the mention of arithmetic and of numbers. Careful 
analysis discloses that subconsciously the boy hates his father, 
tho' consciously he would not admit even to himself that such 
was the case. The father has reiterated to the child many 
times that it was imbecility to pursue other studies without a 



98 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 

basic mathematical grounding. The brilliancy in other studies 
represents how strongly the subconscious energies unite to dis- 
prove the elder's opinions. 

With every unreasoned destructive emotion, it may be 
active as in fear or worry, or passive as in long indulged hate 
or envy, we shut ourselves out from some valuable department 
of our own abilities. It may be worry over material welfare, 
or the egotistical brooding over what "my own life" has been, 
is, or is to be; that does not matter in the least insofar as the 
same destructive result is concerned. 

All the fruits of education are the results of co-operation 
between the subconscious and objective phases of mind. Take 
the lawyer, for instance. For a matter of three to five years 
he directs his attention to the matter of laws and ordinances. 
He views things more or less as the tuition proceeds, thru 
legal spectacles. Psychologically, he is converting the censor, 
however, to allow more of the subconscious resources that are 
appropriate to this branch of human activity to well up from 
within. The censor phase in the early months of the schooling 
acts like a restless needle in a cheap compass. It quivers and 
passes the mark of the true north many thousands of times a 
day, regardless of how sincere the effort of the beginner. 
Once in a while, for moments or hours at a time, the novice 
feels that he has an intuitional grasp of the entire subject, — 
that he sees the theory of the entire system of jurisprudence 
so vividly, that now nothing remains to be done but to fill in 
the details. Then this "perspective" vanishes quite unaccount- 
ably, to stay away maybe for days. Yet the constant effort of 
the volition to enlist the attention is kept up, and parallel with 
this effort more and more do the moments and hours of "intui- 
tional grasp" come over the student. Psychologically, this 
means that concurrently with the objective accumulation of 
facts,' more and more was the censor trained to "release" the 
subconscious energies and resources compatible with the sub- 
ject. The watchman, the capricious, censorious, subjective 
"middle-mind" was itself "bent," in the process, itself was 
educated to hold a more liberal view toward formerly sup- 
pressed "complexes," which it began now to release generously, 
provided such had any bearing on the success or failure of 
the endeavor. Then comes a day when the lawyer is "admitted 
to the bar." If that means that he has truly mastered his sub- 



PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 99 

ject for permanency, the moment when that permanent mastery 
began, marked the point at which the action of the censor, at 
least in one department of the mind, was changed from sup- 
pression to TRANSFORMATION. 

Failure is self suppression. But success is not "letting 
go" of one's suppressions. Success is transformation of 
subconscious energies otherwise made to run in hidden, vicious 
and morbid circles. If one were to "let go" of the suppressed 
complexes clothed in the raw and chaotic savage and childish 
phantasies they subconsciously dwell in, it would not be only 
failure, but insanity as well. 

Objectively we must contrive mechanisms to aid just those 
projects or objects, in regard to which we may be making 
demands on the subconscious. The successful student, whether 
of psychology or of music or of engine-construction does that. 
The young lady using the formula explained in a prior chap- 
ter, would be foolish to idealize herself during a "camera 
moment" as a skilled singer, if at the same time she were not 
taking music lessons in the prosaic and everyday fashion. 
Energies if released, as they are likely to be during the psy- 
chological exercise, would have to work out in some other way 
than music, if she were not training objectively and physically 
for that purpose. Whatever she did other than music with 
the sudden overplus of (then) refined energy, she would have 
a tendency to repeat. The habit mind, that is to say the sub- 
conscious and subjective combined, would pounce upon what- 
ever was done as a substitute for the music, and a "split" atti- 
tude toward music would result. The attitude of "It is the one 
BIG thing to do," would be gone, and the student would be 
now equally sincere in voicing the more common "After all, 
true proficiency is not for me," — "Is it worth while, consider- 
ing the effort?" — and "What is the use?" 

Education' 

Psychologically we may brazenly enumerate the names of 
all the world geniuses as perfect (more or less) examples of 
co-operation between- the subconscious and objective depart- 
ments of mind. Education achieves the same object, — in part. 
In instances of genius the same process has been more com- 
plete. Acute neuroses or so-called manias again represent re- 
sults of the same process, but instead of the energies vitalizing 



100 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 

some mechanism having to do with recognized reality, the 
vitalizing has been played upon, and made to inflate some 
phantasy personal to the sufferer. 

In applied psychology various attempts have been made 
to incorporate certain physical and mental features in a mode 
of concentration that would epitomize in miniature that entire 
process for specific ends which the student would wish to achieve. 
The formula given is such an attempt, and where sanely prac- 
ticed while objectively the student is intelligently learning all 
he can from comparative and contemporary presentations of 
the subject herein taught, we believe that in six months it will 
do as much as six years in the average school would do. We 
do not mean that it can be used as a substitute for the accepted 
forms of education. We do mean this: The word education 
itself is the noun form of the verb "educe" — "to draw out." 
To draw out of where? From the inner accumulations and 
resources both of energy and knowledge — the subconscious or 
subliminal. Our accepted usages, customs, forms, conven- 
tions, amenities and ethics, all that combined we call our civ- 
ilization, demand that the educing be done along certain lines, 
but slightly varying decade to decade. That probably is as it 
should be. We do mean, that education often leaves untouched 
the only ways and means by which the student might hope to 
realize some helpful and unique station in life, to achieve some 
form of perfection peculiar and personal to himself. Con- 
ventional education, no matter how well thought out, will never 
be able to do for people what a good sound drill in self-study 
or psychology can do in such regards. And, moreover, psy- 
chology is best studied as a matter of self-induction and self- 
devisement after a number of years have been spent in life 
away from school. The "mysteries" in classical times, were 
not entered until the decade that signified middle age was 
already passed. However, we can see no harm in getting this 
"second sighting" as a gunner might say, at any time after 
experience at self directing has been undergone. 

And yet, in some exceptional instances, the subconscious 
movements and resources of mind seem to have been all suffi- 
cient to furnish a perfect substitute for education. Such was 
the case of Joan of Arc from a strictly psychological angle, — 
although again such a magnificent instance is left open for 
other and perhaps greater disclosures as time advances. 



PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 101 

Andrew Jackson Davis was, if some reports of his early life 
may be believed, mentally dense and incapable of response to 
the schooling he was expected to undergo. His rather read- 
able and phantastic expose of transcendentalism can be well 
compared with the effort of a man fairly well educated. His 
subconscious faculties were aroused thru the .efforts of a mes- 
merist. Then, as we had it in our previous book, "Psychology 
Made Practical," — the case of Blind Tom has been rather 
incompletely handled by the rigidly limited theories of 
academic psychologists. "Here is the blind negro boy, Blind 
Tom, basking day in and day out on the front porch of the 
landowner's house. Within, the daughter of the householder, 
an advanced musical student, is incessantly practicing at the 
pianoforte. Suddenly, when opportunity offers, the colored 
boy sits down and demonstrates that he can play, and play 
well, not only everything his unknowing teacher (the land- 
owner's daughter) had ever played in his hearing, but that 
he is able to execute without flaw anything that anybody, includ- 
ing a skeptical world-known virtuoso or two, plays before him. 
Unconscious cerebration? Clear as mud, if taken as an all- 
explanatory theory; although 'unconscious cerebration' pos- 
sibly constitutes a necessary part of the physical mechanism 
employed by the subconscious mind in carrying out its orders. 
Perfect suggestibility then? Yes. Now let us strive to under- 
stand what all this implies. Whence Blind Tom's technique? 
Whence the finger dexterity? Blind Tom's playing was with- 
out mistakes, we hear, but we have heard the foolish criticism 
that his fingering and technique were more crude than Pad- 
ereweski's. Sit down at the piano, if you have NEVER seen A 
piano (as Blind Tom had not) , and try a very simple thing — - 
say 'Chop-Sticks Waltz.' You will find that normally five 
or six days of finger drill will be necessary to play this trifling 
inanity CRUDELY." 

"If we will remember that a suggestion once accepted as 
an order by the subconscious mind is worked out to its logical 
conclusion; then if we will pay more attention to this 'logical 
conclusion' dictum, as it would apply in a case of this kind, 
we will gain new light. The undeniable will dawn upon us 
that, given favorable or perfect conditions, the subconscious 
faculties will work to develop the necessary physical media for 



102 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 

expressing and externalizing results of a suggestion well im- 
planted and reinforced thru accepted reiterations." 

We must remember also, that Blind Tom was psychically 
a child to the end of his days. A child is impressionable. That 
is to say, he is in the dream or semi-objective phase of mind. 
If he can be fully enlisted in any pursuit while still in that 
state of mind, you have him then enlisted censorship and all. 
You have no complex to vitiate and deploy the energies; all 
of the subconscious resources can then be used in vitalizing 
and making real the blue-print being implanted deeper and 
yet deeper during the long successions of "camera moments." 

Concentration 

In the normal adult, much experience has been stored 
away in the subconscious. This experience, as shown, is 
wrapped in phantasy, in self-flattery or in self-defense, or in 
suppression. These all have a tendency to draw the new 
vision, the new ideal or the new mental pursuit down to their 
own level, or to repudiate it if it does not in anywise conform 
to them. Hence what the child can do negatively, the adult 
must do positively. Where Blind Tom could lie down and 
drink in his life's ability negatively, — the adult must concen- 
trate his mind and make consecutive and systematic endeavors. 
The child has not the resistances: the adult has, but can over- 
come them. 

Concentration of mind i*s necessary. Concentration is not 
difficult. It is easy. Worrying that "nobody loves us," and 
that we may die in the poorhouse, are perfect examples of con- 
centration. Most people do it superbly well without any tui- 
tion and without hours spent in practice. Psychologically, con- 
centration is no more and no less than paying attention. If 
you would learn mental concentration, learn to manipulate and 
direct your own attention, instead of allowing those fragments 
of your "complexes" which evade or are passed by the censor, 
to guide and misguide it for you. Don't fight the complexes; 
furnish a mechanism, and currently go on completing and per- 
fecting your mechanism, as we saw the law student do. When 
writing a letter, complete a subject before jumping to another. 
That does not mean that your letters should be wordy. When 
reading a paragraph, determine to understand it; if it is not 
understandable, something is the matter either with the writer 



PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 103 

or with yourself. What is the matter? When thinking a 
thought, think intelligently. It is not necessary to come to a 
final judgment and to "set" an opinion on each subject that 
enters the mind. A thought should come to some conclusion, 
but in the interests of sanity, why not let that conclusion be 
that up to the present time you have not enough evidence and 
data at hand to warrant a conviction? Yet think in a certain 
instead of in an uncertain way. These are intensely more 
effective ways of developing mental concentration, than the 
weird concoctions of ink-spot gazing, crystal gazing, punk 
burning, etc., sometimes handed out by would-be teachers as 
infallible "formulas." 

When you have trained a while in enlisting your attention 
to obey your will, then start in on the re-education of your 
subjective phase of mind, — preferably while practicing the 
formula, but alert at other times to the value of playing a 
current counter censorship yourself in the interest of 

YOUR PRESENT IDEALS. 

Do You Ever "Brood?" — Then 
Make Your Brooding Pay 

Aside from being capricious and elusive, the subjective or 
middle layer of consciousness is also the "brooding" phase 
of mind. Learn to brood constructively. Learn to brood 
cheerfully and definitely and with certainty. Learn to brood I 
over realities instead of in your own phantasies, likes, dis- 
likes, past injuries, anticipated troubles, and what not. The 
brooding phase is the subjective — the watchman from whom 
the great magical subconscious gets its working orders. Learn 
to brood constructively and attentively, that is, with the atten- 
tion directed to the object or condition you most need. Don't 
lie to yourself that you already have it; that is not at all 
necessary in the first place, and in the second place, it is doing 
just the thing that you need to get away from — the habit of 
fiction building, which dissipates the energies of the subcon- 
scious. The house contractor never loses sight of the archi- 
tect's plan, but parallel with his visualizing of the blue-print, 
he is working constructively day by day to realize it. When 
the foundation is barely built, he does not waste time lying to 
himself or others that the house is completed, sold and 
occupied. 



104 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 

Reconstruction 

In brief, the reconstruction of some part of one's self is 
the work that mentally all of us are doing, consciously or 
unconsciously, whether we want to and believe we can, or 
whether we disbelieve it and don't want to. The part under 
alteration may be from good health to disorder and impair- 
ment, or it may be from incapacity to health. It may be from 
mental peace to chronic anxiety, or it may be from this sort 
of neurosis back to poise and buoyant mental efficiency. It 
may be from despondent ineffectiveness back into the mild and 
sane aggression that spells certainty and success. 

The "middle" layer of consciousness, that which we have 
called the "subjective" is the place where most of this is deter- 
mined. Because it is so easily reached, and because of its 
valuable position in relation to the subconscious resources and 
energies, it is the "place" in which to try as much definite 
thinking along these lines as possible. The censor resident 
there will of course remain a censor, but he will become in 
that wise an intelligent official, instead of the sickness and 
failure producing ignoramus and nuisance which usually we 
find him to be. The capricious phase there will then slowly 
begin to transform into the constructive, brooding phase. 
There will be less flitting to and fro of counter motives, 
negativing one another and making your efforts futile. You 
will slowly become a unified personality, which means a suc- 
cessful personality. The entire subjective phase will begin 
more and more to respond to the dictates of the attention. 
The attention itself will become more docile to your will. 
Speaking of the effect of the mental arrangement on the phy- 
sical, Wm. A. White, M.D., says in his "Outlines of Psychia- 
try:" "Here the much vexed question of the relation of mind 
to body is touched upon. An appeal to facts would show that 
the individual reacts to his milieu by the development of 
mechanisms that may include as parts the crass physical at one 
end, the refined psychic at the other. In these experiments of 
Pawlow and Cannon, for example, mechanisms were created 
which acted as a whole. Like a watch, the parts were so inti- 
mately related that no portion could he set in motion without 
setting the whole going." So it is in timing up or mastering 
any fraction of consciousness, — such as the subjective tendency 



PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 105 

to dream and abstraction. Practice to make it conform to 
your attention, and behold, the attention itself slowly becomes 
more docile to your will. 

In "sizing up" the average half-failure, half-success, no 
comment fits so well as Bergson's: "Doubtless we think with 
only a small part of our past, but it is with our entire past, 
including the original bent of our soul, that we desire, will 
and act." To train the subjective tendency away from intro- 
version and phantasy, means that you are slowly beginning to 
enlist the co-operation of all you have accumulated in the past. 
It is a fight after all as to whether you will (or have already) 
become one of your own habits, or whether you will whip 
all your habits into line and transform them into willing and 
able co-operators with you. 

But it is a fight in name only. Its technique is that of 
re-educating the subjective phase now pointed out. Some day 
during such a process of re-education, probably this will happen 
to you : probably you will experience one of those common and 
harmless abstractions of a moment from the work, study or 
play in which you then may be employed. You make thou- 
sands of such visits to the subjective every day. But some 
day, in one such visit, instead of Sittings and caprices entirely 
foreign to your life as you used to experience there in the past, 
you will then note with satisfaction that the brooding subjec- 
tive is contentedly ruminating in accordance with your own 
avowed projects and activities. That will mean that you have 
made of an automatic and ignorant censor an intelligent one. 
You will have won over to you a co-operator in your desire 
to bring your habits into line. The "subjective mentation" 
will have become something that transforms, alters, and 
enthuses your subconscious energies from "away-running" 
habits, into "with-you-running" aids. 

In instances of genius, there is a great amount of such 
transforming, but it is often exclusive; that is to say, the censor 
releases so generously in line with the type of genius, that com- 
plexes and other ferments of thought and energy not in line 
with it, are released but little, or not at all. Hence a genius is 
often a neurotic. 

More mildly, gloom and the blues, are likewise such fer- 



106 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 

ments of unexpended energy, barred from expenditure because 
they seek exit in dress not suitable to your censor. 

The fallacious sense of inferiority which many people 
feel, diffidence, shyness, bashfulness, even the often lauded 
"esthetic" poses, to the extent that they disguise inefficiency — 
are all in the same category, but each would require lengthy 
analytical disclosures not exactly in line with the purposes of 
this book. "The way out" from these maladjustments of the 
psyche is practically the same in each instance — it will always 
have to do with re-educating and readjusting that turnstile of 
consciousness which in this chapter we are calling the subjec- 
tive mind. As you persist in taking the effort on your own 
shoulders, learn in this endeavor to shield yourself less, and 
to pity or condemn yourself not at all. The results will then 
be more genuine and more permanent. Strength after all must 
be gained of one's own efforts. 

Failure, disease, poverty, are all the results of thought in 
the ways shown. They have no existence in reality. Remove 
their cause in the consciousness if you would be rid of the ef- 
fects. It is true that in a few isolated cases one may find con- 
ditions which seem stubbornly to refute the truth of this. That 
means that man's insight is not in those channels of his own 
consciousness keen and deep enough, nor his faith strong 
enough to disclose and dislodge the cause. But if endeavors 
for self improvement thru applied psychology have proven 
one thing, it has been this : that of all the ways and means to 
that end, psychology itself in comparison has been the most 
fruitful. 

Generalization 

Our present attempt to analyze things as they act out in 
the lives and actions of persons, is called analytical psychology, 
or psycho-analysis. Its literature dates back only to 1900. 
We do not yet fully realize its importance because of its mag- 
nitude. Centuries hence, provided there are no cataclysms to 
erase our civilization, the first psycho-analysts, such as Freud, 
Silberer, Jung, Ferenczi and others, will be viewed with the 
same respect that we now view Esculapius, Hippocrates, Har- 
vey, — or as in another department we view Bruno, Gallileo 
and Herschel. 

From the standpoint of Success and How to Achieve It, 



PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 107 

this field of study is of infinitely more worth than the findings 
of a psychic research society. There have always been well 
authenticated reports of psychic or so-called "supernatural" 
happenings. An endeavor framed only to tabulate things of 
this sort, when they happen, is not of half the worth as a sys- 
tematized and progressive endeavor toward the end that we 
may know why and how they happen. However, the work 
of such psychic research societies may be called the tabulating 
or recording department of psychology. 

Then, there are a number of able minds throughout the 
world conducting experiments in so-called animal magnetism; 
in mediumship, in clairvoyance, in the possibility of apporta- 
tion of material objects, etc. This might be called the ex- 
perimental department. 

To balance the analytical phase at one end, there is found 
the synthetic psychology at the other. It is concerned mostly 
in extracting from the tabulating and records of experiments 
applicable laws of mind, which the person bent on improving 
himself may grasp and use. 

Analysis Synthesis 

Applied 

Recording Psychology 

We might put it in the form of a diagram, merely to aid 
the imagination. It looks like the swinging board which in 
childhood days we called the "teeter-totter." That's what it's 
meant to look like. A teeter-totter is a simple form of ma- 
chine. That is the conception or idea that we want. A ma- 
chine produces something, or is supposed to. Some machines 
produce nothing but noise, or motion that is lost within itself. 
Yet every machine produces, something. The machine as 
here represented is meant to produce what is known as "Ap- 
plied Psychology." It is meant to produce a psychology that 
each and every one of us can apply to become more efficient; 
to live more abundantly, and to have more horse-sense. 
Recorded fact must first be analyzed, then "put together" 
again for the purpose of deriving a working knowledge of 
the thing studied. This should make plain the inadequacy of 
some systems of applied psychology, "success courses," etc., 



108 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 

before the public, which as a matter of fact, whatever they are 
— are not applied psychology at all. 

Suggestion is the law of the mind. Even the objective 
and critical phase is not entirely immune to its influence. All 
that phase of being now described as the subconscious, the sub- 
jective, — and their methods of expression such as the intelli- 
gent cell activities, the action of the semi-intelligent vital 
energy, — all that goes on in our being tho we be not aware 
of it, — all this is subject to the power of suggestion. Sugges- 
tion to one's self, that is to say, to one's own subconscious mind, 
is best applied in accordance with the formula already given. 
When that is understood, the first question arising in the stu- 
dent's mind is, "What sort of impression shall I implant in my 
subconscious?" To answer that, we attempted to describe the 
lack of sanity, and that "sanity first" should be the object. The 
thoughtful student soon sees that this is not so easy as it ap- 
pears, inasmuch as the "phantasy" or mental conception of 
what sanity and success are, might be so utterly out of line with 
either the "bent" already existing in the subconscious, or with 
external fact itself, that stimulation of such a "bent" by so 
potent a tool as Suggestion might only aggravate whatever 
undesirable condition may already exist. Hence the better 
part of the formula-lesson and of this, is concerned with ways 
of dissipating, or rather, ways of "transforming" such funda- 
mentally adverse "bents" into constructive mechanisms. 

Conclusion 

The thoughtless student might find an idea developing 
within him, to this general effect: If I allow my habit reposi- 
tory, or my subconscious mind to become too wise as to its own 
laws, it will be a keener opponent than ever to my real ideals 
and needs. To that, if it were articulate, the Subconscious 
itself might be imagined as replying: "I am after all yourself. 
I possess powers of which you dare not even dream as yet; I 
possess lucidity which I practice even now in ways you least 
suspect. My welfare is yours. I can act, I do act, I shall con- 
tinue to act. I know no fatigue. But I am entirely limited as 
to the effectiveness of my actions by the dimensions of your 
intelligence and faith. If your faith is strong and blind, I work 
potently to bring about in you a desire for knowledge. I may 
have to do this by bringing about what you would call failure, 



PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 109 

the insane asylum, or other calamities. It was in this connec- 
tion that I was speaking, when I had Phillips Brooks say: 
'The noisy waves are failures, but the great silent tide is a 
success. Do you know what it is to be failing every day and 
yet to be sure that your life is, as a whole, in its greatest move, 
ment and meaning, not failing but succeeding?' If your faith 
is intelligent, that is good. But I am working even for more 
than that. I desire that you reach all that you have repudi- 
ated, forgotten, and stored within me, — to face these things 
and give them energetic, intelligent current disposal in some line 
of thought and objective action benefiting others than your- 
self. I already know all the laws which mistakenly you thought 
you should hide from me, but it is your place not mine, to apply 
those laws. I await your suggestions. Make them inclusive 
of what intelligence you have gleaned from experience and 
study. My present purpose is to make of you, (if you will thus 
permit me, and your permission must be in the form of positive, 
intelligent suggestion) not only a healthy individual physically, 
but to bend heaven and earth that your ideal of a complete and 
successful life here and now may be realized. My ultimate 
purpose is to make of you a being who is not afraid of truth, 
a being who has at his finger tips every secret of nature, who 
controls his own mind and environment with a nod. I shall not 
rest until my powers are united with your initiative by the 
elimination of selfish content with which you have thru aeons 
burdened me. I shall chip, hue and alter until you stand a 
never-dying, passionate and powerful god among other gods 
on high Olympus." 



Lesson VII. 

HOW YOU CAN BEGIN TO "WORK 
MIRACLES" 

YOU, as personality, are the working out of your own 
subconscious accumulation. Broadly, that accumula- 
tion consists of Suggestions, which according to your 
"bent" you have derived and absorbed from mood, dream, 
phantasy, emotion, thought, speech, conviction and action. 

Whenever we have said the "law" of mind, we have 
used the word law by way of euphemism, for no one yet knows, 
much less applies the entire law of mind. But one active and 
mighty fraction in that entire law is covered by what you now 
know of Suggestion. Suggestion might well be called a 
"method" of mind. 

Whatever enlists the attention of the subconscious, is a 
Suggestion and acts as such. 

This chapter is intended to help the student in outlining 
specific ways of applying this method or law of Suggestion. 
Throughout the foregoing it was intended to show that in men- 
tal readjustment, Suggestion plays a major part. If mental 
readjustment is fundamental then complete physical readjust- 
ment follows. If the mind is well proportioned and well 
poised, so will the body be. Suggestion can be used for the 
cure of disease; alterations and improvements, of character; 
the reclaiming of the incorrigible, and bringing the sub-normal 
back to normal. 

A suggestion once implanted in the subconscious mind, 
provided it is not contradicted by weightier suggestions, tends 
to work out to a logical conclusion and result. If the Sug- 
gestion has been constructive, as for instance, a demand for 
health or added capacity for knowledge, then this logical con- 
clusion will show forth in time as a new factor in the character 
of the person; as a sharpening of an old ability or the addition 
of a new one; as a change for the better in the permanent 
health of the individual, etc. There is an irradiation about 
the working out of all such acts of consciousness. That irradia- 

110 



PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 111 

tion leaves no department of the individual untouched. All 
his "natures" — spiritual, mental, psychic, emotional, passional, 
physical, — receive the influence and subtly partake of the im- 
provement. 

To the degree that you've given fixed attention to the 
statements made in these chapters, to that extent have those 
very ideas been absorbed as concepts by the objective mind, 
and also as Suggestions by your subconscious mind. 

Your subconscious phase always had perfect machinery, 
psychic and physical, with which to make you "over" in a short 
space of time. It was unable to make use of that machinery 
to the extent that your objective lack of intelligent faith dis- 
allowed it. 

To the extent you have allowed this tuition to act as a 
Suggestion, to the same degree have you now supplied that 
lack. 

In many a case there is no option for the subconscious 
but to do the ignorant thing, because the accumulation of com- 
plexes (adverse suggestions) and ignorance, outweigh the nor- 
mal evolutionary trends. With those who have merely read 
these chapters in a spirit of deep consideration and fair play, 
a new option has been given the subconscious. But all students 
have done that much. Hence it is up to the enterprise of you, 
the individual reader and student, to take every advantage of 
that option. And it is fair to presume the new option, at least 
weighs as much as any one separate item in the old (and to 
some extent — undesirable) accumulation. It is up to the stu- 
dent to make the intelligent view thus to outweigh the old items, 
— separately at first. You will soon enough see some unsatis- 
factory item that did not suit your ideal at all, surely and 
fundamentally changing for the better by virtue of your appli- 
cation of psychology — the new searchlight. Several of such 
items might in time so transform and begin aiding you instead 
of hindering you — all thru the same sort of application, modi- 
fied only by the dictates of your own discrimination or com- 
monsense to suit the specific problems that arise in you. Then 
out of it all, you will yourself begin to arrive at the deepest 
conviction you've ever had — that you can alter your entire life 
and destiny in this fashion, since you yourself have built it 
so far. Such deep convictions when arrived at thru individual 



112 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 

effort and realization, mold character. If accepted merely 
because some teacher or writer said so, such "accepted" realiza- 
tions often do more harm than good. Why? Because then 
they stretch the credulity instead of stimulating initiative and 
thought. Nature is determined to wean each human being, 
not excluding you or me, — from the universal disinclination to 
think. 

Character once molded in line with facts and laws of self- 
knowledge (which is psychology) — then immediately the sub- 
conscious selection of ingredients is changed chemically to con- 
form to, and to build out, to "ex-press" the new mold of char- 
acter, mentally, psychically, physically. 

Having done this for yourself, your conviction in that 
regard will be an intelligent conviction, because based on a 
demonstrable fact, which you now know you could repeat. An 
intelligent conviction of that kind is a real brick in the real 
edifice of real faith. Any other kind of faith is a confession 
of disinclination to think and eventually to know; any 
other "belief" is a confession of ignorance, and moreover, is 
as often a confession of being content to remain ignorant. 
The kind of faith that is required is a working faith, the kind 
that makes you conclude that if you could do a thing once, — 
then whenever necessary you can consciously undertake the 
process again in whole or in part, and get equally good results. 
That stage arrived at, there is no harm in forming such con- 
victions as prove by themselves that they are supported by 
deeply laid laws of the mind. At that stage it is no longer 
good to be so open minded that everything flies out. Con- 
victions actually based on inherent laws of nature will act like 
exhaustless batteries for the electrical current of an irresistible 
Faith. 

When? And When Not? 

Before that phase is arrived at, it is not advisable to 
proselyte and to try to spread your benefits. Your benefits up 
to that time are likely to prove of dubious value to others. 
However, you will arrive at a state of so-called advance some 
day, where your intelligent appreciation of things as they are, 
and your faith, combine. You will then legitimately and in- 
telligently wish to spread the benefits that you know can be 



PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 113 

experienced by anyone who will apply and realize in ways 
similar, tho' possibly by no means identical, to your own. 

Healing 

Now in healing^ and dealing with others with a view to 
helping them by what you know of psychology, bear in mind 
that magnetism as well as mind at once come into play. Be 
easy about your arguments; your magnetism will often argue 
more eloquently than you ever could. It is seen at once, that 
the way you feel about it must, as it were, be laid to one side, 
there to act as a silent source of power to you. The person 
you wish to benefit may not be able to agree with your view- 
point in the least. Probably the more intelligent your argument, 
the more widely will he disagree. That is but natural; he 
has not covered the same ground. Yet because you have 
studied psychology and he has not, he should not be deprived 
of what benefit you can help bring about for him. You see 
the situation is quite the other way around. Any premature 
attempt to "convert" your beneficiary to your viewpoint might 
touch adversely on some well disguised "soul-wound" (trauma 
— as it is called in psychoanalysis) or some complex of impor- 
tance, sensitiveness, or painfulness to him. If you descend to 
argument with him, the chances are that no matter how rea- 
sonable his statements, he will "lead you on," unconsciously, 
and quite likely never admitting to himself for a moment that 
he is doing so. The situation can be likened to the feigned 
leading-on flight of the thrush who wishes to lead you away 
from her nest, tho' apparently trying to impress you that she 
is flying toward it. 

Analysis 

Of course, if your friend wished to subject himself to that 
form of mental surgery known as psychoanalysis, the fore- 
going advice could be modified in detail, yet not essentially. 
Frankly, these pages have not supplied sufficient tuition in that 
specific field. We shall try to include a page containing a 
bibliography of psychoanalytical and other valuable literature 
at the end of this book. A good psycho-analyst must be a 
rare combination of detective, psychologist, surgeon and arch- 
angel. Experience seems to show that those persons who pre- 
cisely are not psychoanalysts, whatever else they might be, most 
often are the ones who advertise asd announce themselves as 



114 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 

psychoanalysts. A cure can be more than spoiled by reading 
or "imprinting" one's own neuroses into the patient. There is 
small chance for the patient if the analyst is not adept. And 
self-appointed "phychoanalysts" are not without their own 
neuroses, complexes and even traumas. Freud himself has 
called the procedures of such — "Wild psychoanalysis." 

However, if your friend unmistakably shows that he feels 
the better for having someone to listen to his confessions, let 
him confess. Take advantage even of that. Keep alert. Con- 
siderately and consistently you may even probe then — especially 
if your best surmises tell you that his silence really is a dis- 
guised invitation to probe. Sometimes a play of hysteria may 
occur during such a confession. Remember that the person in 
such trouble does not want your expressions of sympathy; he 
wants you to understand. As a psychologist, remember also 
that strong emotion equals a "camera moment." Implant then 
and there, the rational psychological interpretation. Let the 
subconscious mind of your visitor in that manner, receive direct 
from your lips the illuminating and intelligent understanding 
of the things it has been working out under a misapprehend- 
ing suggestion. The intelligent operator should be able to 
maintain all of this procedure at a level quite above the banal- 
ity of a face to face argument. Whatever cheapens the exter- 
nal procedure, it can be easily seen, also cheapens the sugges- 
tional value of all the other things said or done. 

Healing — Comment and Method 

You know, or should have realized by the time you feel 
able to benefit others with applied psychology, that organized 
faith is more powerful than were it blind or unorganized. You 
have gone to systematic effort thus to add strength to your 
faith, and to whatever your faith should prompt you to do. 
A chronometer or a Swiss watch is worth dozens of clattering 
alarm clocks. Either is more systematically organized, and 
can be used to regulate (to bring back to normal) the con- 
stantly recurring aberrations of the cheaper time machines. 
The oriental boy, hardly more than a babe, leads where he 
wishes the lumbering elephant — whose intelligence tho' high 
for an animal, is not the synthetic and finely organized intelli- 
gence of a human child. 

Therefore, in the usual instance, where no confession is 



PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 115 

offered, do not argue. Say what you are prompted to say. 
But in imagination and in the "brooding phase" by all means 
encompass the powerful tools that the subconscious has at its 
command. You will then know, that the task of healing is not 
impossible. It is but child's play to the miracle working giant 
which it is in your power to arouse. 

Whether you are discussing current events with the friend 
you have decided to help, the weather, or any other inoffen- 
sive topic does not so much matter. Under all the surface 
features of the visit you know he is there to be helped and 
that you are there to help him. You are at liberty to appear 
quite ordinary, quite professional or quite friendly, as you 
choose; yet in the depths of your consciousness you can still 
realize clearly that both of you subconsciously possess the pow- 
ers of heaven and earth with which to change the undesirable 
condition. 

If the condition to be relieved is physical, you know by 
this time that the organs, limbs and features of your visitor's 
body are but complicated worlds of intelligent cells, living, 
working and building according to the imprints in his subcon- 
scious mind. You saw the cells to be sensitive and sensible, — 
living their lives as active artisans; working, selecting their 
nourishment with rare discrimination; ejecting effete matter; 
playing, reproducing their kind, and magically evolving limbs, 
features or faculties needed by unforseen emergencies. In 
looking further, you would find that they are capable of war- 
ring upon, devouring or destroying and eliminating from the 
physical system the most deadly of invading bacilli. And yet, 
this cell-universe is but one of many instruments used by the 
subconscious mind in carrying out the fundamental orders given 
it by your character, and the detail directions given it by your 
objective thoughts. 

The Healing Procedure — Continued 

Let us take it for granted now that thru experience and 
conclusions derived therefrom by meditation, you have realized 
that illuminating and constructive suggestions implanted in the 
subconscious mind will work out in rebuilt health and strength 
for your visitor. Your thought, then, which comprehends all 
this, is more systematized, and, therefore, from the subcon- 
scious standpoint, is stronger than any loud-mouthed opinion 



116 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 

or notion about such things that the other may have. A 
thought based on experience and conviction of law and fact, 
is mesmeric. We might put it this way: — Thought based 
on experience and conviction of fact, both possesses and like- 
wise engenders mesmeric values. It has a power in itself to 
penetrate the critical and argumentative objective phase, then 
the censorship of the subjective, and to reach the very roots of 
the mind — namely the subconscious. 

To get a still greater impingement of "power for health" 
for your thought, spoken and acted procedure, — imagine, 
design, and again imagine the condition desired. Imagine it 
until its vividness outshines every other feature in your "brood- 
ing" or subjective phase of mind. It is not necessary to say 
much. What is said must carry weight, of course. But the 
"great work" is always accomplished telepathically, whether 
the person to be benefited is in your office or a thousand miles 
away. As you imagine definitely what is desired, you will sud- 
denly feel within you a movement of Will. That movement 
of will acts as pressure or influence both on your own subcon- 
scious and on that of your friend. The object of that pressure 
and influence is that the designed and desired condition, just 
as it is glowing in your imagination, be made manifest in the 
physical body of your visitor. It means that the design of 
Health has overflowed the banks of your own mind, and into 
the subconscious reservoir of the other. There automatically 
it will be absorbed by the intelligent cells of the other. It 
will be taken up by them as a burning lamp would be "taken 
up" if brought into a darkened room containing a thousand 
mirrors. 

The cells work broadly in line with the picture, be it of 
health or of sickness, that is thus reflected by their tiny minds. 
With this "movement of will" you have done much, probably 
all, that is needed to change the disease picture the cells of 
your friend were carrying and working out, to a health-picture 
— which now they will carry, reflect and work out with the 
same degree of skill and conscientiousness. 

A Word for Magnetism and Rapport 

The vital energy, or magnetism, formerly described, itself 
is not devoid of a form of intelligence. It might be called 
semi-intelligent. Emotions and thoughts are built out of this 



PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 117 

semi-intelligent essence; imagination molds it as a lightning- 
rapid sculptor would mold clay. It swarms and surges with 
a sub-human yearning to be made use of by you. It is the 
carrier of vital currents, finer but analogous to electricity. It 
extends from a few inches to several feet outside of the body 
which it pervades. One's own room or office is usually per- 
vaded with it, even long after the departure of the tenant. 
Often sensitive people will note strange thoughts and impulses 
assailing them immediately after moving into new living quar- 
ters. "Checking up" on the conditions of the preceding ten- 
ancy will usually solve the mystery regarding the origin of 
such compulsions. 

Saturating the office of the practitioner, if healthful and 
constructive, this vital magnetism will of itself act as a helper 
in any specific work or object to be accomplished along this 
line. This makes it more desirable to have those you wish 
to benefit, call on you, if possible, than for you to call on 
them. Use common sense in making exceptions, as well as in 
working up psychological advantages to compensate when you 
do make the exceptions. 

We had it a moment ago that the "aura" of psycho- 
physical force, "extends from a few inches to several feet out- 
side the body which it pervades." In a state of intense objec- 
tive activity, — running, wrestling, etc., the aura retracts almost 
entirely to the proportions of the physical body. In deep 
trance it extends outward many feet. In resting, as for in- 
stance after pleasant fatigue, it extends outward a number of 
feet, passively. It is then that it most easily establishes a 
temporary blending with the aura of any well disposed person 
who may be present. The nearer to a state of perfect rest, 
physical and mental, that you can bring your friend, the greater 
results and better will he carry away with him at the end of 
his visit. 

In short, tactfully contrive that in some way he fulfills the 
formula of: 

1. — Relaxation (physical). 
2. — Passivity (mental). 

3. — Fixation of Attention (on the subject of health 
exclusive of his worries). 



118 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 

Be always alert; during the entire procedure see to it that 
in a whole-souled manner you are always thinking and acting 
in terms of certainty instead of uncertainty. "For ye know 
not at what hour," — nor for that matter do you know during 
which particular moment of that unknown hour, your visitor 
may be in his most camera-like moments of fixed attention. 
His subconscious will then take pictures from your mind, from 
your magnetism, your aura, and from all that is you. The 
pictures so taken will probably be by ear, tho' not necessarily; 
probably by his eyes, — but not necessarily, — but always by his 
(already) clairvoyant and clairaudient subconscious thru his 
own sensitive aura of vital energy. 

You may well imagine, as soon as your visitor is at rest 
mentally and physically — if he is no longer fidgeting, nor 
worrying, nor arguing, — that then his aura has begun to con- 
tact "you" with a million feelers the intelligent sensitiveness of 
which could be described by no physical simile. A perfect con- 
dition of that kind is called "rapport." Often it is well to 
take such a state of rapport for granted. There seem to 
be no certain physical indications for it. Sometimes, but not 
always, with the establishment of the rapport there may be 
detected a deepening of the breathing, a sudden more complete 
relaxation of muscular and nervous tension, or an unusual 
steadiness of gaze. For the duration of such rapport regard 
your visitor as stationed in a "camera position," in a "fixation 
of attention position." The entire period of rapport is a pro- 
longed psychological moment. It means in short, that then 
the subconscious mind of the person is taking a succession of 
photographs exclusively from the person, object, or condition 
with which the rapport is established. 

If the condition of rapport is taken for granted as soon 
as the visitor is at rest, no advantages will be lost. Often a 
psychologist loses magnificent opportunities by trying ineptly 
to induce the condition when already in that very sitting, it 
has probably* occurred a dozen times — only to be spoiled by 
the psychologist suggesting the induction of a condition that 
is already there. 

However, again use common sense. Play to the gallery 
of the visitor's mind if necessary. If you are in position to 
know that mental argument, anxiety, impatience, etc., flee him 



PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 119 

at the sight of some book, sacred or profane, then read a few 
passages with emphasis and unction from such a book. If the 
lack of rapport is after all only too obvious, have the subject 
mentally count with you the ticking of a clock or metronome. 
Count with him. Do not count audibly. Once in a while rap- 
port may be hastened, — (tho' it is always preferable not to 
hasten it) by breathing at the same rate of speed — in unison — 
with the person whose subconscious phase of mind is to be 
reached. 

Then, when argumentative resistance is no longer ex- 
erted nor contemplated, — visualize strongly the condition you 
wish to bring about in your caller. As before recommended, — 
encompass in your imagination the powerful and efficient 
resources which in reality the mind of each person has to bring 
this about. NOW, with all this as your mental backing, Speak 
Slowly and Distinctly, Directly to the ENTIRE Personality Be- 
fore You — full knowing that a radiation, appropriately trans- 
formed, is reaching his inmost self. Do this in conjunction 
with the movement of Will described above. All this is reach- 
ing to the roots of his mind by a thousand different channels, — 
thru the apparent and physical senses, as well as thru invisible 
counterparts of them; thru the vital aura, — thus exerting an 
electrical and controlling contact with a veritable center of 
omnipotence within himself. 

The Healing Procedure — Concluded 

If the subject is at all responsive, he will experience a 
great benefit then and there. Dismiss him without anxious 
inquiry as to how the suggestions "took." If you inquire, you 
are pulling the seed up to see how it will grow. All "after- 
visit" enthusing is just that and nothing more. Discontinue it 
if it has been your practice, and note the hastened good results. 
Have a termination routine to your procedure just as genial, 
just as' clean cut, just as certain as your start-routine. Then 
those whom you are helping, even while at their usual activities 
away from you, will be able to advert back to you mentally 
with a clearer picture. Whenever your picture, plus your en- 
vironment, plus your procedure occurs to them, the definite 
picture aroused in their minds will act as an inner or silent 
repetition of your Suggestions for their benefit. "The devils 
steal only from uncounted stores," say the Chinese. Crispness, 



120 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 

Definiteness, etc., are psychological "counts," — themselves are 
healthful suggestions. See if in the spirit of this the office 
arrangement itself is conducive to the best psychological effects. 
Remove distracting pictures or wall papers. Have your en- 
vironment suggest utility, cleanliness, efficiency and health. 

Do not submit to be leaned upon. Do not bargain with 
nor have anything to do with those who want "treatments." 
Let them seek their education elsewhere until they actually 
expect to be healed. You worked for the ability to benefit 
others; let them work to deserve it. Refuse the chronic shop- 
per among quacks and healers. It would take a million years 
to teach one of that feather what expectation is. 

The Sub-Normal Back to Normal 

In academic presentations regarding imbecility, idiocy, 
insanities, and the like, there has been, and still is, much danger 
of adopting too physical a view of these forms of incompe- 
tence. Only one form, paresis, would in some measure seem 
to justify that view. In regard to it, the conclusions seem to 
be along this line: the ataxias (difficulties of movement, etc.) 
accompanying, show the degeneration as affecting the entire 
organism, not the brain alone, and the disease is associated 
with syphilitic infection of long standing often enough to indi- 
cate its presumable origin. In a deep sense, and possibly in a 
racial sense, it can be seen that misapplied psychology there 
too is the ulterior source of origin. Where in autopsies degen- 
eration of the brain is found occasionally (it is but seldom 
found), with one or two forms of the major dementias, there 
is danger of being blinded by the apparency, and of concluding 
erroneously that the condition of the brain and body induced 
the condition of mind. 

Science can tell us with infinite precision the way that 
physical things act, how they appear, etc., under given. circum- 
stances. , It is the systematized knowledge of things observable 
by the senses. Psychology tells us that the senses themselves 
are ex-press-ions of the self — the self being the thing that has 
generated and knitted together thru anterior evolution its own 
needs and their fulfillments, in the form of the five senses as 
we have them today, — and is by no means finished with the 
process of enabling itself still further In these directions. 



PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 121 

Psychology is coming to the conclusion that no condition 
of the embodiment, (nor any part of it, such as the brain) 
ever yet preceded the condition of the mind. It is the other 
way around. No disease starts of itself. A deliberate mis- 
management of the psychic self, indulged in at some time, 
always has been the cause of psychic disease, exactly in the 
same way that ignoring or deliberate mis-handling of physical 
laws causes physical disease or impairment. It may be difficult 
or even impossible for the impaired one to remember when 
and how he purchased the disorder he now has. But if psy- 
chology has hit upon an axiom in declaring that all health and 
all disease are endogenous (self-caused) not exogenous (caused 
from outside of self), then it does not matter much where 
and how the purchase was made. The problem is how to 
"un-purchase." 

A Stimulating Speculation 

Some of those who are philosophically inclined and who 
accept that axiom (self causation of all fortune and misfor- 
tune) as the only one conformable to the dictates of justice 
and reason, believe with Hegel, Spinoza, Nietzsche and other 
great philosophers, that reincarnation may be a factor. We 
are reaping to some extent, according to that belief, right now, 
the results of thought and action in previous lives, as well as 
of the present life. Of course that would imply that all we 
have said about suggestion, in the long run works even more 
effectively on the originator of the thought, suggestion or 
action, when propelled against another, than if merely applied 
to one's self. It would mean that everything we think or 
wish or perform for or against others, then and there uncon- 
sciously we incorporate as health and fortune, or as disease 
and misfortune, into our own ruling subconscious suggestions, 
complexes, urges, repressions, — themselves later to work out 
into our life here and now, or in a future re-embodiment. 
Adherents of that belief explain that there is a universal law 
of moral justice, and that our earthly joys and sufferings are 
but the balancing of reaction to action in the instigator of the 
action, whether the action originally was mental or physical. 
This supposed inherency in all action, they call Karma. Look 
the word up in the largest and most recent dictionaries if it 
interests you. 



122 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 

The advantage in that belief is that soon its votary sees 
he lives in a universe of law; that he must learn to cope 
with responsibilities and not evade them; that there is no injus- 
tice. On the other hand, believers in reincarnation are often 
at a disadvantage in trying, by a sort of garrulous prosiness, to 
make their belief explain things too easily, and entirely too 
much. A belief, or even the knowledge that the world is 
round, does not enable us to travel any faster, yet in the main 
it tends to make our travelling less uncertain. To travel faster, 
we had to invent railways, steamships and airplanes. As 
beliefs, reincarnation and justice (Karma) may be stimulating 
to high endeavor, but do not afford any technique, or any 
method of going about to improve one's embodiment, charac- 
ter, success, etc., here and now. Whatever may be the larger 
metaphysical movements outside the mentally observable 
kaleidoscope of birth, life and death, our surest and sanest 
method of co-operating and achieving the best here and now, 
is in learning and more ably using the tools we have. That 
again is psychology. 

Helping the Sub-Normal — Continued 

Let us fancy that among your circle of acquaintances there 
is a case of arrested mental development. He is a burden to 
all concerned. He is, let us say, hopelessly backward, not only 
in his education, but even in his power to associate ideas. He 
does not seem to reflect upon his observations. Yet in a sense, 
he is precocious — tho' again incorrigible and selfish. A typical 
case. Somewhere, other psychologists have called him a 
moron. Your talk about Karma and reincarnation, your talk 
of sun-worship, of Jesus' great love for sinners, of God-good — 
evil-devil, error and mortal mind, is not calculated to radiate 
anything that the unfortunate one himself can recognize as 
illumination. What, from the standpoint of applied psychol- 
ogy, can be done? Can he be made to comply with the for- 
mula? Probably not, on casual trial. He may be able to 
rest and relax bodily. So far so good. Have him do that the 
best he can. Failing that, he may easily be induced to give 
up the mental chatter which he is using in place of thought. 
You can then and there begin to rehabilitate his badly dis- 
ordered "brooding phase" or subjective "cross-road" of con- 
sciousness. 



PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 123 

All the "mental backing" required by you in such an 
effort, is discussed in former paragraphs. It all applies here 
as there. Develop a real interest in your protege. Realize 
that you yourself are not entirely rid of the moron phase. 
No one is. Realize that your comparative excellence, as you 
view him, is a permanently assured thing conditionally. It is 
not an absolute certainty. Were you to misapply yourself, in 
ways that now seem foreign to your nature, you would be as 
much of an outcast child of evolution as he seems to be. By 
such understanding you are developing intelligent interest in 
him. Pick out his outstanding quality; cogitate over, and cul- 
tivate your grasp of that quality. It is worth its weight in 
diamonds to you, because shortly you are to transform that 
salient into your entrance wedge to the nascent roots of his 
real character. Often, the strongest quality in the sub-normal 
is his selfishness. He is self centered; his only consecutive 
interest is his self interest. 

There may be an infinity of reasons why all his other men- 
tal mechanisms save that one, have ceased to grow. If the 
sub-normal himself demonstrates a conscious insight into his 
own condition (colloquially — if he knows he is "off"), it may 
not be beside the point to probe and rationalize any phantasies 
which may by the process of probing be externalized. If that 
process be used, then this also may be borne in mind: there is 
a thinly veiled lunacy indulged by many well-meaning people, 
which right down at bottom would classify everything in life 
as wicked and unworthy. The subconscious in such cases, of 
course, is crammed with idiotic complexes based on such notions 
as: that it is wicked to breathe or drink with enjoyment; eat- 
ing is wickedness; the sexual act or thought regarding it is 
wickedness; ministering to the body is degrading; to enjoy life 
in any form is sin, etc. If this foul condition is transferred 
unconsciously to a susceptible child, subconsciously the logical 
conclusion is likely to be a decision to remain a moron. If 
that subconscious decision could be articulated, it would prob- 
ably amount to this: "Since I cannot get back to where I 
started; and since the land I was supposed to travel bristles 
with prohibitions against life, love and activity, it is better 
for me to abide at this way-station; thus far and no further." 
This "abiding at a way-station" may be a mild form of demen- 



124 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 

tia precox, of paranoia, depressive or hysteriform incapacity, 
moronism, — in degrees all spelling "failure" from the social 
and ethical standpoint. 

Your business is so to contrive, that he will of himself 
once more wish to jump on the train, leave the little way- 
station, and go on into useful and efficient life. If his self- 
interest is the only angle that juts out from the futile circle of 
introversion, then use that angle. Excite his sense of posses- 
sion. Let him feel that to own and to possess is good. Let 
him see that exertion and effort will increase his capacity for 
ownership. Do not let him have things because he asks for 
them or cries for them. That is not enough. That would be 
too strong a suggestion that he remain an infant. Do not 
point to the self-satisfied plutocrat or the absolute monarch 
as examples of anything worth emulating. In another octave 
they are babes, getting things because they ask for them. As 
a race we've held the ill-mannered baby-brat ideal too seriously 
and too long. It enters as an ingredient into all our success 
manias. Lie, if necessary, that all possession is the result of 
endeavor. Paint life in colors that are attractive to him, not 
to you, — so he will urge himself to make the necessary endea- 
vors to own and enjoy more of it. Convince him that he has 
but misplaced possessions already his — possessions of untold 
value. And that is the truth. If you must do this in ever 
so childish a way, do it,- — it is just as well. Stoop to conquer. 
The more readily, then, will he see it is necessary for himself 
to seek, hunt and dig. He is to learn that selfishness itself is 
better served if he develops several intelligent interests out- 
side himself. 

Helping the Sub-Normal — Concluded 

Melancholia, the various depressed attitudes toward life, 
and numerous other entrenchments of failure, can be made to 
improve if environed by persons constantly thinking and acting 
in ways here described. Often there is no physical impairment 
as yet to retrieve. It is misharnessed and misguided energy, 
physical, psychic and mental, jostling the dazed rider and im- 
perilling bystanders. It is ignorantly misapplied psychology; 
often nothing but that. Its corrective is wisely applied psy- 
chology. That wise application must be conducted by sur- 
rounding people to so fine and so comprehending an extent 



PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 125 

that the central person in question himself and of himself, 
finds and continues in the reconstructive application. 

Complicated cases should of course receive institutional 
care. They should not be tampered with; never should they 
be regarded as chances for the beginner to "try my luck." 
Charlatans in this field should be coldly and completely boy- 
cotted, because penalization by such is often turned into self- 
advertisement. 

Generalization 

No person exists but responds to human encouragement. 
Correct psychology can make of encouragement a fine science. 
Its purpose always should be that the temporarily discouraged 
one seek and find in himself the source of his own encourage- 
ment. We all have the phobias and neuroses in various de- 
grees of attenuation, — which in the institutions we may see 
precipitated and then inflated into obsessional values. Hence 
the pharisaical attitude is the least calculated to benefit those 
who merit benefit from you, and in the long run that attitude 
is the most damaging to yourself. 

Methods of aid by applied psychology can be inferred 
to any degree of practical value, limited only by the capability 
and initiative of the student. Originality is a big factor. The 
formulas can be effectualized in innumerable ways by those 
who have learned to put two and two together. 
Conclusion 

In the hands of those who cannot analyze nor synthesize 
nor draw sane conclusions, all the formulas and citations in 
the world would be but futile instruments. To such it can 
only be said, "you'll never get the 'blessed truths' which you're 
waiting open-mouthed to receive and believe. You'll never 
evade the necessity and responsibility of learning to think by 
any such infantile ruse as that. To those who are for the 
moment infinitely more abject failures than yourself, — the 
advice was, seek, dig, apply yourself. It is the same to you. 
If you knew from the reports of honest neighbors, that during 
a fit of amnesia or loss of memory, you had buried a basket 
of your own diamonds somewhere in your own back yard; if 
you knew that your present impoverished condition, in all 
phases of life — friendship, success, happiness, purpose, health, 
— would be yours only upon their recovery, — who and what 



126 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 

could then dissuade you from digging, until you had every 
square inch of that back yard spaded up and spaded up deep? 
Learning to think is just that. Psychology or self-knowledge 
is one of the jewels contained in that neglected basket, of 
greater value than all the diamonds yet dug. Do not flatter 
yourself that you already know how to think. There are still 
possibilities in that direction. No great thinker has ever yet 
so flattered himself. The savage seated in his hollow log, 
paddle in hand, might well have nodded his head sagely, say- 
ing: 'I already know all about navigation, for I convey myself 
over the water.' Lucky then we poor benighted agnostics who 
have gone right ahead and invented the steamship anyway." 



The reader has covered a range, which so far as tuition 
by printed word can go, may be regarded as complete. At 
any rate it is complete in one direction. There are many 
directions, some just as valuable as the one now traversed. 

We have attempted to show a phase of universal law 
which most intimately touches ourselves. That law cannot be 
seen, touched, nor heapd. Yet the degree to which it is com- 
prehended, adds value to seeing, touching and hearing; makes 
of existence — Life; makes of life — Realization of the Ideal. 

The next chapter, which concludes the present manuscript, 
is not intended for a lesson. It is merely proferred as a sharing 
of experience with fellow students. Before indulging in its 
rather too metaphysical ramblings, a little fable occurs to us, 
which might be entitled: 



LAW 

A MAN of common sense heard among sea-faring men that 
Longitudes, Latitudes and especially the Equator were 
in fabulous repute. He chartered a yacht and braved ocean 
storms that he might see the Equator. He never saw it. He 
returned safely, but he had suffered mal de mer and was much 
disappointed for having believed the wild tales of mariners. 

Again from astronomers and philosophers the man of 
common sense heard about the incredible value of the Earth's 
Axis. He extorted the wealth of Croesus and of Rockefeller, 
he exhausted the genius of Archimedes and of Edison to con- 
trive apparatus; he enslaved the labor of a million men, who 
dug four thousand, and then eight thousand miles straight 
down and thru the globe, — all that he might see the Axis 
around which the world revolves. And he did not see it. 
Neither did he prove his own foolishness. He wrote books, 
and convinced thousands of gushing truth seekers that no axis 
exists. 

Yet navigation continued; commerce went on unperturbed 
as tho' this man of common sense had never lived. More- 
over, the morning after the publication of the books, the four 
cardinal directions were not in the least disturbed, nor the 
measurements of Time. 

And to add insult to injury, the world continued to re- 
volve on its axis. 



Moral : IT IS A VICE OF MATERIALISM TO 

DENY THOSE REALITIES WHICH WILL NOT 
BECOME UNREAL ENOUGH TO OBJECTIFY. 



127 



VIII 

A DAY DREAM 

1WAS wandering thru the park of a great city. In the morn- 
ing's preparations for my walk, I had spontaneously im- 
planted in my mind a suggestion for the main thoughts of 
the day. We all do this whether or not we know it. I wanted 
some clear and valuable conception which I could transfer to 
fellow students. I was seeking a clearer view, a more com- 
prehensive revelation of the causes underlying success — the 
ability to live more and to grow more. I did not mind if my 
fancies proved airy, so long as they were in that direction. I 
felt more metaphysical than analytical. Whenever we make 
mind or thought itself the subject of our thinking, we are 
headed toward the subconscious in the most intelligent way. 

Occasionally I regarded the trees and flowers. Once I 
noticed also that a squirrel came near me. Then chattering 
at my lack of foresight that I had brought him no nuts, he dis- 
appeared in the foliage of a great tree. 

I came presently to an obscure little bypath. It led me to 
an artificial lake, at the edge of which, seeing an inviting shrub- 
encumbered bench, I obeyed what seemed to be a subconscious 
summons to sit and rest. 

It may be that I went to sleep. I do not know. Through- 
out the incidents of the following vision drama, I recall often 
seeing the sparkle of the lake. 

I had no sooner sat down than it was quite clear to me 
that I was just now departing from a certain location outside 
our solar system. I had resided there for uncounted aeons. 
While there, I had not been learning to live, — as the inhabit- 
ants of this planet without exception are doing, — but had al- 
ready been living, — physically immortal, if I chose to be, or 
changing embodiment consciously, if I cared for a new or dif- 
ferent sort of body. In that place the effects of no elemental 
buffeting of storms, either of wind cyclones, nor the internal 
gales of pride, vanity, or avarice, could touch me. Such gales 
and cataclysms did ride and blow there as thruout the universe. 

128 



PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 129 

But in that old, mellow, perfected planet I had a well trained 
host of magic servants, who counteracted inadvertencies and 
accidents with ease at a mere nod from rne. On this morning 
of my departure the great sun presiding in that remote do- 
minion of space, rose in wondrous magnitude; the air itself 
shimmered with the colors of rose and gold. I set out, riding 
the air in a chariot-like vehicle, drawn with whirlwind force by 
a harnessed legion of brilliant beings who seemed to be each a 
composite of a god and an animal. 

Something said to me: "You are viewing His descent 
and yours; an old eternity is left and a new one is entered." 
I could not understand this ; I forgot to ask an explanation ; 1 
was too much absorbed in beholding the glorious spectacle — 
for I was both rider and beholder. In the etherially golden 
harness, I noted again with a great throb those fabulously per- 
fect embodiments of energy; they were like lithe, tawny ani- 
mals; yet they were not unlike active young gods. I marveled 
again at the incredible ease with which they conveyed the 
equipage in the direction the rider wished to go. 

That they should ever become disorganized! That they 
should become things of cunning and selfishness — which now I 
felt by prescience they might become ! 

I alighted blithesomely, a strange visitor on a strange 
little planet called Earth. The wild life scampered to cover, 
torn between terror and innate curiosity The hills quaked 
slightly. I had landed on a great sunlit plateau. "This truly 
is the roof of this little world," was my first thought. I felt 
like some great Nature Spirit, delegated to brood over this 
spring-decked and breeze-blown land. I seemed immeasur- 
ably huge, cosmic, universal. If I had seen humans at the 
time, I might have been interested in them as in some race of 
rather active insects. My senses of sight and hearing were 
intelligent; with humans this is not so. For instance, I needed 
to strain but little, and the wind rustling in the grass with 
something in it of legend and tradition, would tell me the 
secret history of galaxies and other things immeasurable to 
the human mind. 

For the first time I gave way to two great emotions, based 
on some false conviction of superiority. 

First, — I allowed myself to luxuriate in unbounded con- 



130 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 

tempt for those who must involuntarily inhabit this puny 
sphere. / would sojourn here a while because I willed it. 

Second, — I gave way to the unbounded elation of a 
Nirvanee, — of a DeQuincy under an overdose of opium- — in 
thinking that this new little place could throw no difficulty upon 
me that I could not manipulate as a pellet of putty in my hand. 
Emotions produce reactions. I was not prepared. It 
came slyly — in what apparently was an honest form of fatigue 
following a long journey. My lithe, magical servants whis- 
pered languorous insinuations. They lied — the most refresh- 
ing rest would be abrogation of authority and responsibility. 
I forgot this would mean abrogation of the same amount of 
liberty, and believed them. The drowsy, tangled dream into 
which I was already sinking was filled with subdued chatter of 
the treasons they were then enacting. It sounded melodiously 
in my ears. I was already in the anteroom of the palace of 
slumber. I allowed the new environment to gain ascendancy 
over myself. I could feel it, as I lay pillowed in the mosses 
and grass. It seemed a mountain had begun to accumulate 
over me. I did not know what I was to experience in conse- 
quence of allowing a surface ripple thus to outweigh a long 
established tidal sweep toward an ideal. The symbol of that 
unified purpose, the etherially light harness or chain of gold 
which my magical subordinates had worn with honor, I saw 
was suddenly broken into bits. I did not care then. I fell 
asleep. 

I awoke — it seemed in a few moments — it seemed from 
death. I was feverish and delirious. I wanted to know how 
long I had slept. A voice in the delirium replied, "Three hun- 
dred thousand and forty years of the earth." I was now a 
giant both in body and soul. I was not sure of this, but that 
also in a mysterious way, I had been told. I believed it be- 
cause of my vast suffering. None but a giant could suffer so 
much. The former and more happy impressions seemed now 
withdrawn to some remotely past eternity. I wanted so much 
to be sure I was a giant. That would lend me self-confidence. 
But infallible assurance seemed out of my reach, for tho' I 
could look around and outward, I could not look inward nor 
in anywise make known to myself my own proportions. Up 
to my head I was buried under a veritable mountain, so that 



PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 131 

my limbs were not free. Any attempt to move my concealed 
self resulted in friction and great pain. Out of shere anguish 
at having to be so stagnant, occasionally I would shrug an 
arm, move a foot, or try to bend an elbow. And I noted then, 
that great boulders often would be dislodged from the moun- 
tain side, and roll into the adjoining abysses with a loud crash. 

I wondered if I should have to remove the entire moun- 
tain by such meager and spasmodic efforts. I speculated 
drearily how long that would take. For huge as I suspected 
myself to be, the mountain which so imprisoned me, was vast. 
When I grieved, it seemed the tears themselves made the moun- 
tain more concrete, and that around my head — a most awkward 
place. Once, insanely impatient, I shook at the impediments 
£o my liberty with the energy of a cyclonic demon. But after 
a brief numbness the pain was worse, and the resulting per- 
spiration only solidified the cement bearing rocks about my 
body the tighter. I was again outwitted. I dared not give 
way to any form of excess. I had the Will to do, but did not 
know how. 

Daily I had observed separate hordes of little sprites 
gamboling about the rocks and furrows of this mountain, which 
seemed to be their natural habitation. There were several 
distinct tribes; there were striking characteristics to distinguish 
one clan from another, among which always appeared the 
same figure woven in the clothes worn by members of the 
same tribe. For instance, there was one tribe which appeared 
absurdly pious, and in their clothes always appeared the 
numeral 6. Another clan impressed me as being specialists in 
some kind of training; if they had been human, they 
would have been designated as the "mental type;" their 
numeral was 5. Another legion looked ridiculously senti- 
mental — unadulterated embodied emotions; these wore the 
number 4. Most of them were active. Some seemed weirdly 
intelligent. Some again showed no more intelligence than a 
vegetable or a lump of lead, living quite passively in the rocks 
and shrubs. The shrub dwellers displayed the number 2, and 
the rock dwellers the number 1. 

I began to wonder if any of these could give me a help- 
ful hint about self-liberation. One of the pious sprites hap- 
pened to be nearby. I hailed him. Twirling his thumbs in 



132 PSYCHOLOGY — Personal and Essential 

a most quaker-like fashion, he approached me sedately. I had 
wanted to explain my condition to him — but he did the explain- 
ing. Of course he had everything wrong. But he said it all 
with a great air of unctuous omniscience. He told me I should 
be more trusting, but he said it in such a "don't-ask-me-what-I- 
mean-by-that" manner, with such sanctimonious posing, that I 
was non-plussed. If we say we trust, and then do not act, we 
are lying. Only mistrust enforces idleness and confinement. 
But I did not dare to say this to him. He must have been 
nervous, for he was careful to tell me that if I did not believe 
him I would go to hell. Evidently he had forgotten how hard 
it is to scare any person who is already in the place that suits 
him least. He had admonished me to do as he said, yet he had 
said nothing that I could do. The means of doing anything^ 
were not in my possession so long as I lay buried. 

When he left, I found a small ivory casket which he had 
dropped while speaking to me. I would have called to him, 
but he was already on the other side of the mountain. On 
second thought, I covered the little box with my hair, where it 
would be invisible should he return. 

Next I hailed a "5." I expected much from him. He 
seemed an able fellow. I fancied his tribe most resembled 
myself. He, just like the "6" had done, enlarged miraculously 
as I thought these things of him. After the salutation, he 
arranged a chart, illustrating my difficulty to me. This he did 
skillfully, yet I could feel he had some trace of ulterior pur- 
pose of which I knew nothing, and suddenly cared even less. 
I knew, what he comprehended only in ingenious but erroneous 
theory. I felt sure that in some subtle way he was conniving 
with my pious friend of the previous day to keep me in bond- 
age. I dismissed him in a huff. His departure was so hasty 
that he left a tiny clasped scroll, which at no time during the 
visit had he unrolled. I could not unclasp it, of course, with 
my hands still buried. So I treated it as I had treated the ivory 
casket of the pious sprite, and concealed it under my hair. I 
now began to doubt seriously whether any help at all could be 
expected of these curious gentry. 

Yet I called in the tribe of the emotional dancing folks, 
their pink and green drapes showing the figure 4. Among 
them there was much sentiment, much infatuation one for the 



PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 133 

other, with incontinent flurries of dislike. Their chatter was 
sweet and melodious. Despite their voluble professions of 
sympathy, they did not know how to give sane advice. Most 
of them said that I should find a great deal of pleasure if I 
decided only to enjoy my confinement, instead of straining 
always to be free. Gloat over my own confinement indeed ! 
I was glad when they wearied of me and left, bent on their 
own airy gambols. 

Two or three times I hailed other legions. I remembered 
one disorderly tribe, with bodies of animal strength — the hides 
they wore for clothes stamped with the number 3. They 
showed their teeth, sneering at me as much as to say, "Why 
do you not use brute strength?" but remained impervious to 
my explanation that I had tried that method and failed. Yet 
thereafter, it was these brutes who brought me food, often 
snarling the while. The shrub dwellers, showing the number 2, 
once proposed to make my mountain more beautiful with flow- 
ers, if I would but promise not to try to get away from it; 
and the still more inert rock dwellers consented (as tho' I had 
ever asked them any such thing!) to weight the entire moun- 
tain with gold and precious stones on the same condition. 

I was more weary than ever of all this business of talking 
in a circle. Everything had been cheaply and copiously dis- 
cussed but liberty. And after all, everything but liberty and 
power to do things for myself, was so utterly beside the point. 
Was all my search vain? 

At this moment a startling thing happened. It unnerved 
me for a moment. Out of the mountain, — or it might have 
been from its summit, — a voice spoke : "You have taken their 
message despite their words," The shock — combined with a 
feeling that the possessor of that voice intended for me a great 
good, struck me as a double shaft of lightning might strike. 
It was not at all like the voice I had heard in delirium. I felt 
privileged to relax for a moment, and moved my hand to 
release it from strain. In doing so, accidentally the scroll 
became uncoiled with a snap. It had been wound with a strong 
outward-bearing spring. I read its contents. It seemed to be 
in two divisions. The first I could decipher. I was not im- 
patient about the rest, feeling that in time I would ascertain 
the entire meaning. The readable part was a strange thing. 



134 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 

It seemed to be a sort of secret prayer or incantation. Likely 
this "5th triber" had never dared to breathe it audibly. Per- 
haps, way down, he had even dreaded that the wishes therein 
contained might be carried out. Yet there it was: "I hate 
the stone-sitters and these shrub-sitters fervently ! They are 
inert! By their stupidity they impede my researches whereby 
I might gain more power over the sleeping giant. I curse the 
brutish third tribe; may they sicken! Their insolence stands 
between me and entire subjugation of the giant! Maledic- 
tions upon the pink and green clan — intent upon each other's 
worthless selves by way of love, hate, and all that follows ! 
Not one in a hundred of my traps- for the sleeper remains 
unbroken, by their carelessness, long enough to show its worth ! 
And O that collective horror of hypocrisy, the tribe of the 
pious ones! May a venomous plague exterminate them during 
the dark of the moon and in one fatal night! If only 'He' 
knew how important in keeping him pinioned, and yet how 
easily dislodged is the very rock on which he rests his head! 
Woe is me if he discovers!" — here the readable part of this 
curious tirade ended, and the undecipherable characters com- 
menced. 

Of course I directed what force I was free to use upon 
the rock I had used for a pillow. And sure enough, this great 
stone, worn smooth by my own head, was quickly wrenched 
from its position, and I heard it crash on some ledge far below. 
I had always refrained from trying any movement whatever 
with that particular rock. Like a mental habit, — like a famil- 
iar attitude, it always had seemed gratefully comfortable. 
Now that I had dislodged it in the face of discomfort, I noted 
with joy I had one arm free already, and there were clefts 
visible in many of the boulders, which before had been solid. 
I set to work with my free arm. Alas ! I could not in any- 
wise find leverage enough to move even the smallest of the 
remaining huge rocks, which still weighed down the rest of 
my body. 

Just then a little cynical imp appeared. I forget which 
tribe he belonged to. He pretended not to notice my predica- 
ment. I asked him, exasperated, if his grin was the only aid 
he could lend me in my effort. That banished his taciturnity. 
He replied that the only liberty I would ever achieve would be 
in the anticipations and expectations of it; that I was fruit- 



PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 135 

lessly exerting myself. He said if I gained freedom, I would 
be more than ever dissatisfied; that I would pine not only for 
the reclining pose, but actually for the involuntary imprison- 
ment, which, of course, once broken, I should never be able to 
regain in full measure. Even if I should imprison myself 
thereafter, he assured me, it would be a counterfeit imprison- 
ment, because voluntary. He declared he knew many who 
were free, and the possession of their full powers was too 
much and too irksome. They spent their after days in keen 
regrets for the happiness lost forever when freed from their 
stony prisons. He left then, burning a weedy cigarette, from 
which live sparks fell and scorched my free hand. 

I believed nothing he said. Yet it weighed in upon me 
as to the probable uselessness of further effort. I recalled 
the ivory casket now, and opened it. It was significantly made 
in the form of a prayer book. The pious "6th tribers" evi- 
dently were nursing wishes just as virulent as those of the 
"5th." The readable paragraph closed with these words : "O 
that the imprisoned one were to forget his effort but for a 
day; for his habitual distraction alone keeps him inflamed and 
swollen, and without that the cave could not hold him. I 
would incite him to slay all the tribes but mine. I would then 
fill him with remorse, for I know his weakness. He would 
then crawl back into his prison — and his subjugation to me 
alone would be permanent." 

Thought I to myself, "Why this amazing enmity between 
these different tribes, and what is the mysterious connection 
their own welfare seems to have with me?" I wondered if 
I could not carry out the bloody things hinted in this last 
parchment, and escape the remorse and self-reimprisonment. 
The same clear voice, as from off the mountain top, inter- 
rupted, bidding me to recognize, if I could, in the dubious and 
devious little folks, who furtively tried to misinform me now, 
during lapses in their own activities on the mountain, the dere- 
licts of that former wonderful organization with which I had 
"landed," an eternity ago. 

"No living thing has yet been killed since' the dawn of 
time. To 'slay' means to analyze, understand, and thus to en- 
force a change of embodiment, degree and manner of action. 
Do this sort of thing 'with all your might,' which again means 



136 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 

'with .all your intelligence.' ' Benign wisdom vibrated in that 
voice. I formed a strong wish to see its source, — so strong, in 
fact, that I must have swooned — for I experienced that strange 
yet not uncommon phenomenon of a dream within a dream. 
In this, I was not the imprisoned giant, but walked on the 
mountain top, the clear voice leading me to a pool. I saw no 
man, and surmised the voice emanated from the pool's crys- 
taline depths. I bent over its brink and looked within it. What 
a reflection! I saw a face unmistakably possessing miraculous 
wisdom. If / had it, surely I would not have remained im- 
prisoned so long. It could not be myself! With a pang I 
realized this liberty would prove the transitory privilege of a 
dream, and that I would awaken again in prison. And from 
the pool came the words: "The thought must lead the soul, 
and the soul is pioneer of the embodiment!" 

"Who are you, and how came I here?" I asked in a sort 
of desperation. And the answer was: "I am You, or rather 
I am What you Will — your ideal — at this time — Liberty. The 
mind becomes like unto the thing thought of. Thinking of 
me in terms of liberty, your mind became liberated. Accord- 
ing to its fundamental attractions and attitudes, the mind 
builds or with equal ease, reconstructs the body and its environ- 
ment. It is the way to freedom. Your body is no longer 
swollen from the fight of prison thoughts and freedom actions. 
Go re-inhabit it and take it out of the cave with you." 

There was a great lull, a long hushed pause, as tho' 
interminable abysses of expanse were being traversed. I 
awoke, — still under the rocks. But I did not ponder. A flash 
of the great remembrance acted like an instant and powerful 
spring. Literally I catapulted myself out of the cave, leaving 
it maybe some skin, — yet glad that I need never enter such 
confinement again. There was a shudder perceptible in the 
air itself, and all but visible in the shrubs and among the rocks. 
Perhaps the sprites knew telepathically that their master was 
once more at liberty, and that a new order would now come 
into being among them. 

In the first flush of this great boon of freedom, being 
weak from lack of food, I seemed for a moment to experi- 
ence a kind of hysteria. I cried wildly into the air: "O how 
may I most adequately thank and worship You?" — and at once 



PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 137 

there was an unmistakable reply: "By eating! Whatsoever is 
necessary, that do with all your intelligence." I ate some nuts, 
herbs, and fruit, and drank water from a neighboring spring. 

I knew now that I should have to bring myself to a test. 
My strength was growing within me. I decided to summon 
all the tribes I had seen, and to organize them into a corps of 
intelligent and obedient servants. No sooner had the echoes 
of my resolute call died down, than from rock, shrub, furrow 
and cliff, came trooping the legions of sprites. Their advance 
guards approached as if to offer me advice. From habit born 
of captivity, I was about to listen to them, and immediately 
the would-be advisors began miraculously to grow in size. 
Then I remembered some of the things said to me by the 
Voice, and abruptly called a halt. I commanded them. I 
could hardly believe myself, — yet I commanded them. And it 
even seemed a familiar thing to do, — an establishment within 
myself, obscured for a short time, 'tis true, but more ancient 
within me than the prison habit of listening to the vagaries and 
whinings of my mind. As I commanded, I saw just a shadow 
of a diaphanous golden chain entwine the entire legion ever 
so lightly, yet securely, and the controlling reigns to these 
chains I noted ended in two places, my chest and my head. 
There was something yet to learn, I felt. There was some- 
thing sinister, like a problem a child dreads and yet knows 
will be solved when it becomes an adult, — there was some- 
thing of that kind in the feelings I had while viewing my re- 
organized legions. Especially was this so with the tribe pos- 
sessing bodies of wild animal suppleness and perfection — the 
"3s," and to some extent also with the sentimental "4s." 

Suddenly, I recalled that all that was transpiring might 
have an every-day human application. What, for instance, 
was meant by the mountain imprisonment? The best-inten- 
tioned of people are sometimes desperately unsuccessful. Had 
I but experienced a dramatization of the subconscious mind 
during any given period of such incapacity? Surely! It may 
mean more; it certainly had not meant less! The tendencies 
and energies which in synthesis are Mind, there I had seen just 
as active and powerful as ever, but split and disorganized. 
Commonly underlying many failures in life, there is a care- 
fully nursed "blanket" suggestion. Whether it is denied or 



138 PSYCHOLOGY — Personal and Essential 

called by pretty names, it amounts always to Selfishness and 
Negligence. Before they fail, such people are concerned in 
sensuously experiencing "What Will Come" to them. They 
are keen on "What Fate Has In Store For" them. They buy 
horoscopes. They refer unfortunates to Jesus, or to a philos- 
ophy, instead of aiding them. They forget completely the 
evolutionary law which says: "Your fate of tomorrow has in 
store for you exactly what you stored in it today by the qual- 
ity of your thought and your treatment of the other fellow." 
Theirs is the blanket suggestion of negligence and selfishness, — 
the worst weakener and disorganizer of the subconscious. Each 
subconscious tendency ceases work for the unified purpose, and 
becomes a leach. Powers wane. Lack of ease, or "dis"-ease 
ensues. No longer united in its energies, the subconscious can- 
not reconstruct fundamentally, but garnishes the disorder with 
a concealment of fables and lies, pose and neurosis. The 
subconsciousness of the oyster so builds the pearl, as a pro- 
tection against the invading and irritating grain of sand. The 
sprites offered you, while you were satisfied to remain no 
stronger than they, to flower and jewel your mountain prison, 
but they did not volunteer to remove it. "Remember you have 
to direct and control the mind, instead of listening to and 
obeying its vagrant and conflicting trends." 

I remarked that I was well cognizant of the law of Sug- 
gestion. "Yes, you have learned laws. But witness in all 
human laws, for instance, in the securing of property and 
possessions, there is one underlying thing, which, if understood 
and applied, places the person above and beyond the reach of 
their penalties, and that is Integrity, or real, whole-souled hon- 
esty. So with the law of Cause and Effect, working in and 
thru psychology as everywhere else. Observe, if the deepest 
Cause animating one is directed by just as deep laid a Sug- 
gestion of an ideal, — and if that ideal is Liberty thru Control 
and Unity of Mental Purpose, — then all the petty effects, 
detriments, accidents, inadvertencies, sicknesses and misfor- 
tunes, — in short, the confinement of the giant under a moun- 
tain of inertness, need never occur. That mountain to many 
people is physical disability today; they need to hear and heed. 
To a great many more, that mountain is a psychic prison, 
composed of those concrete boulders more commonly known 



PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 139 

as creeds, dogmas, convictions, biases, greeds and prejudices. 
They need to hear and heed even more; they can never be 
physically well while they are mental cripples." 

I began to consider what I should now do with m} 
"legion." I had "mustered my forces," — and now must engage 
in some great task. It seemed that this great work would 
have to do either with removing the mountain of my former 
imprisonment, or probably with building a road so that there- 
after it could be easily scaled. In fact, I made this point the 
topic of a question. I heard the Voice replying, hardly audible 
now, but yet quite distinct: "You are both to scale it and at 
the same time to remove it. Living and your life's work will 
both be features in this process." 

"But what in very truth is this mountain? Is it of quartz, 
and shale, and lava, as it appears to be?" 

And the reply was, "Mainly, it is composed of Ignorance." 

Then what — yes what ! A block away thru the trees 
came the noise of a trolley car clanging on its way, and the 
honking of automobiles. I had awakened. 

t&* t£*i »^* 

What would I not have given for a reply to just one more 
question ! Those sprites — and in a golden harness again, — 
what possibilities was one to read into this symbol? And was 
there anything impossible? But I was hopelessly wide-awake 
now, and arose to leave the park. Once or twice, as I saun- 
tered home, there occurred to me an enumeration of a sort, 
which I had compiled for myself as an aid in my early studies. 
I used to "play" that it tabulated the octaves thru which I 
fancied energy is made to transform by evolutionary effort. 
I do not know if it should be of any importance in this con- 
nection. It ran, if I remember, somewhat in this fashion : 



140 



PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 



Name (a) 
and Symbol (b) 



a. Inertness. 

b. Mineral. 

2. 

a. Passivity. 

b. Plant. 

3. 
a. Appetite. 

a. Passion. 

b. Animal. 



Nature therein 
is enforcing 



In the "present" 
human this often 
appears as 



Response to stimuli. Heaviness or lazi- 
ness. 



// can be trans- 
formed into 

Sub stantiality or 
"well - grounded- 
ness." 



Organization and The "human vege- Systematizati on — 
diverse forms. table" a 1 1 i tude. Aptness in forrrj, 

Blind submission. and technique. 



Mobility; senses; Debauch and Re- 
intelligence thru morse, 
selfishness. 



Ductile and tract- 
able energy — for 
healing, etc. Basis 
of the vital aura. 



a. Emotion. 

b. Human. 



a. Reason. 

b. Human 

("to be" 



6. 

a. Ideal. 

(not your 
mental 
picture 
of it). 

b. Human 

("to be"). 
7. 

a. Abstraction. 

b. Human 

("to be"). 



Self-direction ; 
Volition — 
Individuality. 



Powerfully organ- 
ized thought. Ani- 
mal selfishness was 
a tool, now to be 
discarded. 



Relinquishment of 
mechanism in fa- 
vor of principle. 



Sacrifice of all de- 
sire — poisonous be- 
fore this stage. 
Such "sacrifice" is 
cause of neurosis 
with students who 
over-estimate their 
"grade." 



Selfish elation coun- 
teracted by selfish 
depression. 



Capacity for conse- 
cutive thots, them- 
selves no more 
than anxieties ; 
and this only when 
one's own welfare 
is concerned. 

Selfish piety; the 
exploded orthodox 
conception of a 
god acting unlaw- 
fully. 



Sacerdotal twaddle ; 
Agnostical twaddle; 
or — 
Nothing. 



Refined, Magnetic 
Charm. Incipient 
(tho' often decep- 
t i v e) clairsen- 
tience. 

Ability, means and 
position of benefit 
to others than self. 
Self ^regarding 
intellect and gen- 
ius. 

Balance; Poise, 
Highest degree of 
human enlighten- 
ment. 

Illumination. 



A method of trans- 
cension. Gradua- 
tion from the hu- 
man into a super- 
human cycle of 
evolution. 



PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 



141 



GOOD BOOKS TO READ 



Subject and Title. 

PSYCHOLOGY: 



Author. 



Brain and Personality, 
Law of Psychic Phenomena, 
What Is Psychoanalysis? 

The Meaning of Dreams, 

Three Contributions to the 
Theory of Sex, 

Man's Unconscious Conflict, 



W. H. Thomson. 

Thomson Jay Hudson. 

Isador H. Coriat. (Published by 

Moffat, Yard & Co., N. Y.) 
Isador H. Coriat. (Published by 

Little, Brown & Co., Boston.) 
Sigmund Freud. (The Nervous and 

Mental Disease Publishing Co., 

Washington, D. C.) 

Wilfred Lay, Ph.D. (Published by 
Dodd, Mead & Co., N. Y.) 

PHILOSOPHY AND MISCELLANEOUS: 

White Cross Library (compris- Prentice Mulford. (Published by 

and recently reprinted, F. J. 
Needham, 52 W. 14th St., N. Y.) 



ing 6 or 7 very helpful books, 
tho' elementary. Each, 
$2.00). 

Rasselas, 

Esoteric Buddhism, 

History of the Conflict Between 
Religion and Science, 
The Madman, His Parables 
and Poems, 

OCCULT AND MYSTICAL: 
Light on the Path, 



Samuel Johnson. 

A. P. Sinnett. (Houghton-Mifflin 

Co., Boston.) 
Jno. W. Draper. 



Kahlil Gibran. 
York.) 



(A. A. Knopf, New 



Mabel Collins. (T. S. Pub. Co., 25 
W. 45th, N. Y.) 

Bhagavad-Gita, Translated from the Sanscrit by W. 

Q. Judge. (T. S. Publishing Co., 
25 W. 45th St., N. Y.) 

New Testament in Translations, James M. Pryse. (Published by 

John M. Pryse, N. Y. Also 
available at the T. S. Pub. Co.) 



FICTION: 

Mysterious Stranger, 
Personal Recollections of 

Joan of Arc, 
Food of the Gods, 
Island of Dr. Moreau, 
Time Machine, 



Mark Twain. 

Mark Twain. 
H. G. Wells. 
H. G. Wells. 
H. G. Wells. 



142 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 

Dracula, Bram Stoker. (Doubleday, Page & 

Co., Garden City, N. Y.) 
Zanoni, Bullwer-Lytton. 

Strange Story, Bullwer-Lytton. 

Coming Race, Bullwer-Lytton. 

Etidorhpa, John Uri Lloyd. 

N. B. — Those books, the publishers of which I have not mentioned, 
are available even in the smaller public libraries. In the larger cities, 
it is likely that any of them can be secured without writing to the 
publishers. 

H. C. SHEPPARD, 
Care The J. F. Rowny Press, 

Los Angeles, Calif. 



Psychology Made Practical. 

By H. C. Sheppard (1919). 
Psychology : Personal and Essential. 

By H. C. Sheppard (1920). 



tJAjp'21 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



020 196 579 2 



